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TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS 

AND EASTERN SKETCHES 



BY 



I 



BRET HARTE 




11 lbB2,'^ 

BOSTON 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK: II EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET 

1882 




7S ;?A B 
•/I' 



Copyright, 1872, 187s, 1878, and 1879, 

Bv JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. and HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO. 

Copyright, 1882, 

By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 



j4/I rights reserved. 



CONTENTS. 



TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS. 

rAGB 

HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO Simpson's BAR . , , , 3 

MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS . . . " 21 

^. AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN ....... 59 

^ A PASSAGE IN THE UFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST . . .Ill 

^^ THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 1 38 

y^ A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL I67 

^ BABY SYLVESTER 187 

^^WAN LEE, THE PAGAN 205 

AN HEIRESS OF RED DOG 224 

THE MAN ON THE BEACH 242 

ROGER CATRON's FRIEND 280 

"jinny" 297 

two saints of the foot-hills 307 

*'who was my quiet friend?" 32i 

"A TOURIST FROM INJIANNY" ....... 33I 

^ THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS 343 

THE MAN FROM SOLANO 370 

A GHOST OF THE SIERRAS 379 



vi Contents. 



EASTERN SKETCHES. 

PAGB 

VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION 391 

PETER SCHROEDER ......... 404 

MORNING ON THE AVENUES * , , , . . . 424 

MY FRIEND THE TRAMP ........ 432 

A SLEEPING CAR EXPERIENCE 445 

THE MAN WHOSE YOKE WAS NOT EASY , . ... . 453 

THE OFFICE-SEEKER • • . 461 

WITH THE ENTRIES 477 



TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS. 

{Cojiiinued.) 



VOL. III. 



IpotD ©anta Claus Came to 
©imp0on'0 13ar. 

It had been raining in the valley of the Sacramento. The 
North Fork had overflowed its banks, and Rattlesnake Creek 
was impassable. The few boulders that had marked the 
summer ford at Simpson's Crossing were obliterated by a 
vast sheet of water stretching to the foothills. The up-stage 
was stopped at Granger's ; the last mail had been aban- 
doned in the tules^ the rider swimming for his life. "An 
area," remarked the " Sierra Avalanche," with pensive local 
pride, " as large as the State of Massachusetts is now under 
water." 

Nor was the weather any better in the foothills. The 
mud lay deep on the mountain road ; waggons that neither 
physical force nor moral objurgation could move from the 
evil ways into which they had fallen encumbered the track, 
and the way to Simpson's Bar was indicated by broken- 
down teams and hard swearing. And farther on, cut off 
and inaccessible, rained upon and bedraggled, smitten by 
high winds and threatened by high water, Simpson's Bar, 
on the eve of Christmas Day, 1862, clung like a swallow's 
nest to the rocky entablature and splintered capitals of 
Table Mountain, and shook in the blast. 

As night shut down on the settlement, a few lights 
gleamed through the mist from the windows of cabins on 
either side of the highway now, crossed and gullied by law- 



4 How Santa Claus 

less streams and swept by marauding winds. Happily 
most of the population were gathered at Thompson's store, 
clustered around a redhot stove, at which they silently 
spat in some accepted sense of social communion that per- 
haps rendered conversation unnecessary. Indeed, most 
methods of diversion had long since been exhausted on 
Simpson's Bar ; high water had suspended the regular 
occupations on gulch and on river, and a consequent lack 
of money and whisky had taken the zest from most ille- 
gitimate recreation. Even Mr. Hamlin was fain to leave 
the Bar with fifty dollars in his pocket — the only amount 
actually realised of the large sums won by him in the suc- 
cessful exercise of his arduous profession. " Ef I was asked," 
he remarked somewhat later, — " ef I was asked to pint out 
a purty little village where a retired sport as didn't care for 
money could exercise hisself, frequent and lively, I'd say 
Simpson's Bar ; but for a young man with a large family 
depending on his exertions it don't pay." As Mr. Hamlin's 
family consisted mainly of female adults, this remark is 
quoted rather to show the breadth of his humour than the 
exact extent of his responsibilities. 

Howbeit, the unconscious objects of this satire sat that 
evening in the listless apathy begotten of idleness and lack 
of excitement. Even the sudden splashing of hoofs before 
the door did not arouse them. Dick Bullen alone paused 
in the act of scraping out his pipe, and lifted his head, but 
no other one of the group indicated any interest in, or 
recognition of, the man who entered. 

It was a figure familiar enough to the company, and 
known in Simpson's Bar as "The Old Man." A man of 
perhaps fifty years ; grizzled and scant of hair, but still fresh 
and youthful of complexion. A face full of ready but not 
very powerful sympathy, with a chameleon-like aptitude for 
taking on the shade and colour of contiguous moods and 



Came to Simpson's Bar, 5 

feelings. He had evidently just left some hilarious com- 
panions, and did not at first notice the gravity of the group, 
but clapped the shoulder of the nearest man jocularly, and 
threw himself into a vacant chair. 

♦' Jest heard the best thing out, boys ! Ye know Smiley, 
over yar — Jim Smiley — funniest man in the Bar? Well, 
Jim was jest telling the richest yarn about " 

" Smiley's a fool," interrupted a gloomy voice. 

" A particular skunk," added another in sepulchral 

accents. 

A silence followed these positive statements. The Old 
Man glanced quickly around the group. Then his face 
slowly changed. " That's so," he said reflectively, after a 
pause, " certingly a sort of a skunk and suthin' of a fool. 
In course." He was silent for a moment as in painful 
contemplation of the unsavouriness and folly of the un- 
popular Smiley. " Dismal weather, ain't it ? " he added, 
now fully embarked on the current of prevailing sentiment. 
" Mighty rough papers on the boys, and no show for money 
this season. And to-morrow's Christmas." 

There was a movement among the men at this announce- 
ment, but whether of satisfaction or disgust was not plain. 
" Yes," continued the Old Man in the lugubrious tone he 
had, within the last few moments, unconsciously adopted, 
— " yes, Christmas, and to night's Christmas Eve. Ye see, 
boys, I kinder thought — that is, I sorter had an idee, jest 
passin' like, you know — that maybe ye'd all like to come 
over to my house to-night and have a sort of tear round. 
But I suppose, now, you wouldn't ? Don't feel like it, may- 
be ? " he added with anxious sympathy, peering into the 
faces of his companions. 

"Well, I don't know," responded Tom Flynn with some 
cheerfulness. " P'r'aps we may. But how about your wife, 
Old Man ? What does she say to it ? " 



6 How Santa Claus 

The Old Man hesitated. His conjugal experience had 
not been a happy one, and the fact was known to Simpson's 
Bar. His first wife, a delicate, pretty little woman, had 
suffered keenly and secretly from the jealous suspicions of 
her husband, until one day he invited the whole Bar to his 
house to expose her infidelity. On arriving, the party found 
the shy, petite creature quietly engaged in her household 
duties, and retired abashed and discomfited. But the sensi- 
tive woman did not easily recover from the shock of this 
extraordinary outrage. It was with difficulty she regained 
her equanimity sufficiently to release her lover from the 
closet in which he was concealed, and escape with him. 
She left a boy of three years to comfort her bereaved 
husband. The Old Man's present wife had been his cook. 
She was large, loyal, and aggressive. 

Before he could reply, Joe Dimmick suggested with 
great directness that it was the " Old Man's house," and 
that, invoking the Divine Power, if the case were his 
own, he would invite whom he pleased, even if in so doing 
he imperilled his salvation. The Powers of Evil, he 
further remarked, should contend against him vainly. All 
this delivered with a terseness and vigour lost in this 
necessary translation. 

*' In course. Certainly. Thet's it," said the Old Man^ 
with a sympathetic frown. " Thar's no trouble about thet. 
It's my own house, built every stick on it myself. Don't 
you be afeard o' her, boys. She may cut up a trifle rough 
— ez wimmin do — but she'll come round." Secretly the 
Old Man trusted to the exaltation of liquor and the power 
of courageous example to sustain him in such an emergency. 

As yet, Dick BuUen, the oracle and leader of Simpson's 
Bar, had not spoken. He now took his pipe from his lips. 
" Old Man, how's that yer Johnny gettin' on ? Seems to 
me he didn't look so peart last time I seed him on the bluff 



Came to Simpsons Bar. y 

heavin' rocks at Chinamen. Didn't seem to take much 
interest in it. Thar was a gang of 'em by yar yesterday — 
drownded out up the river — and I kinder thought o' Johnny, 
and how he'd miss 'em ! Maybe now, we'd be in the way 
ef he wus sick ? " 

The father, evidently touched not only by this pathetic 
picture of Johnny's deprivation, but by the considerate 
delicacy of the speaker, hastened to assure him that Johnny 
was better and that a "little fun might 'liven him up.' 
Whereupon Dick arose, shook himself, and saying, "I'm 
ready. Lead the way, Old Man : here goes," himself led 
the way with a leap, a characteristic howl, and darted out 
into the night. As he passed through the outer room he 
caught up a blazing brand from the hearth. The action 
was repeated by the rest of the party, closely following and 
elbowing each other, and before the astonished proprietor 
of Thompson's grocery was aware of the intention of his 
guests, the room was deserted. 

The night was pitchy dark. In the first gust of wind 
their temporary torches were extinguished, and only the red 
brands dancing and flitting in the gloom like drunken 
will-o'-the-wisps indicated their whereabouts. Their way 
led up Pine-Tree Canon, at the head of which a broad, low, 
bark-thatched cabin burrowed in the mountain-side. It was 
the home of the Old Man, and the entrance to the tunnel 
in which h:; worked when he worked at all. Here the 
crowd paused for a moment, out of dehcate deference to 
their host, who came up panting in the rear. 

" P'r'aps ye'd better hold on a second out yer, whilst I 
' go in and see that things is all right," said the Old Man, 
with an indifference he was far from feeling. The sugges- 
tion was graciously accepted, the door opened and closed on 
the 'host, and the crowd, leaning their backs against the 
wall and cowering under the eaves, waited and listened. 



8 How Santa Claus 

For a few moments there was no sound but the dripping 
of water from the eaves, and the stir and rustle of wrestling 
boughs above them. Then the men became uneasy, and 
whispered suggestion and suspicion passed from the one to 
the other. " Reckon she's caved in his head the first lick ! " 
" Decoyed him inter the tunnel and barred him up, likely." 
"Got him down and sittin' on him." " Prob'ly biling 
suthin' to heave on us : stand clear the door, boys ! '' For 
just then the latch clicked, the door slowly opened, and a 
voice said, "Come in out o' the wet." 

The voice was neither that of the Old Man nor of his wife. 
It was the voice of a small boy, its weak treble broken by 
that preternatural hoarseness which only vagabondage and 
the habit of premature self-assertion can give. It was the 
face of a small boy that looked up at theirs, — a face that 
might have been pretty, and even refined, but that it was 
darkened by evil knowledge from within, and dirt and hard 
experience from without. He had a blanket around his 
shoulders, and had evidently just risen from his bed. " Come 
in," he repeated, " and don't make no noise. The Old 
Man's in there talking to mar," he continued, pointing to 
an adjacent room which seemed to be a kitchen, from which 
the Old Man's voice came in deprecating accents. " Let 
me be," he added querulously, to Dick BuUen, who had 
caught him up, blanket and all, and was affecting to toss 
him into the fire, "let go o' me, you d — d old fool, d'ye 
hear?" 

Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to the 
ground with a smothered laugh, while the men, entering 
quietly, ranged themselves around a long table of rough 
boards which occupied the centre of the room. Johnny 
then gravely proceeded to a cupboard and brought out 
several articles, which he deposited on the table. "Thar's 
whisky. And crackers. And red herons. And cheese." 



Came to Simpsoiis Bar. 9 

He took a bite of the latter on his way to the table. 
"And sugar." He scaoped up a mouthful eft route with 
a small and very dirty hand. "And terbacker. Thar's 
dried appils too on the shelf, but I don't admire 'em. 
Appils is swellin'. Thar," he concluded, "now wade in, 
and don't be afeard. / don't mind the old woman. She 
don't b'long to me. S'long." 

He had stepped to the threshold of a small room, 
scarcely larger than a closet, partitioned off from the main 
apartment, and holding in its dim recess a small bed. He 
stood there a moment looking at the company, his bare feet 
peeping from the blanket, and nodded. 

" Hello, Johnny ! You ain't goin' to turn in agin, are 
ye ? " said Dick. 

" Yes, I are," responded Johnny decidedly. ^ 

"Why, wot's up, old fellow?" 
"I'm sick." 
"How sick?" 

" I've got a fevier. And childblains. And roomatiz," 
returned Johnny, and vanished within. After a moment's 
pause, he added in the dark, apparently from under the 
bedclothes, — " And biles ! " 

There was an embarrassing silence. The men looked 
at each other and at the fire. Even with the appetising 
banquet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall 
into the despondency of Thompson's grocery, when the 
voice of the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came deprecat- 
ingly from the kitchen. 

" Certainly ! Thet's so. In course they is. A gang 
o' lazy, drunken loafers, and that ar Dick Bullen's the 
ornariest of all. Didn't hev no more sabe than to come 
round yar with sickness in the house and no provision. 
Thet's what I said : ' Bullen,' sez I, ' it's crazy drunk you 
are, or a fool,' sez I, 'to think o' such a thing.' 'Staples,' I 



lo How Santa Claus 

sez, * be you a man, Staples, and ' spect to raise h — 11 under 
my roof and invalids lyin' round ? ' But they would come, 
— they would. Thet's wot you must ' spect o' such trash 
as lays round the Bar." 

A burst of laughter from the men followed this unfortu- 
nate exposure. Whether it was overheard in the kitchen, 
or whether the Old Man's irate companion had just then 
exhausted all other modes of expressing her contemptuous 
indignation, I cannot say, but a back door was suddenly 
slammed with great violence. A moment later and the 
Old Man reappeared, haply unconscious of the cause of 
the late hilarious outburst, and smiled blandly. 

" The old woman thought she'd jest run over to Mrs. 
MacFadden's for a sociable call, " he explained with 
jaunty indifference as he took a seat at the board. 

Oddly enough it needed this untoward incident to 
relieve the embarrassment that was beginning to be felt 
by the party, and their natural audacity returned with their 
host. I do not propose to record the convivialities of that 
evening. The inquisitive reader will accept the statement 
that the conversation was characterised by the same 
intellectual exaltation, the same cautious reverence, the 
same fastidious delicacy, the same rhetorical precision, and 
the same logical and coherent discourse somewhat later in 
the evening, which distinguish similar gatherings of the 
masculine sex in more civilised localities and under more 
favourable auspices. No glasses were broken in the absence 
of any ; no liquor was uselessly spilt on the floor or table in 
the scarcity of that article. 

It was nearly midnight when the festivities were inter- 
rupted. " Hush," said Dick Bullen, holding up his hand. 
It was the querulous voice of Johnny from his adjacent 
closet : " O dad ! " 

The Old Man arose hurriedly and disappeared in the 



Came to Simpson's Bar. 1 1 

closet. Presently he reappeared. " His rheumatiz is com- 
ing on agin bad," he explained, " and he wants rubbin'." 
He lifted the demijohn of whisky from the table and 
shook it. It was empty. Dick BuUen put down his tin cup 
with an embarrassed laugh. So did the others. The Old 
Man examined their contents and said hopefully, " I 
reckon that's enough ; he don't need much. You hold on 
all o' you for a spell, and I'll be back ; " and vanished in 
the closet with an old flannel shirt and the whisky. The 
door closed but imperfectly, and the following dialogue was 
distinctly audible : 

" Now, sonny, whar does she ache worst ? " 

" Sometimes over yar and sometimes under yer ; but it's 
most powerful from yer to yer. Rub yer, dad." 

A silence seemed to indicate a brisk rubbing. Then 
Johnny : 

" Hevin' a good time out yer, dad ? " 

"Yes, sonny." 

"To-morrer's Chrismiss, — ain't it?" 

" Yes, sonny. How does she feel now? " 

"Better. Rub a little furder down. Wot's Chrismiss, 
anyway ? Wot's it all about ? " 

" Oh, it's a day." 

This exhaustive definition was apparently satisfactory, for 
there was a silent interval of rubbing. Presently Johnny 
again : 

" Mar sez that everywhere else but yer everybody gives 
things to everybody Chrismiss, and then she jist waded inter 
you. She sez thar's a man they call Sandy Claws, not a 
white man, you know, but a kind o' Chinemin, comes down 
the chimbley night afore Chrismiss and gives things to 
chillern, — boys like me. Puts 'em in their butes ! Thet's 
what she tried to play upon me. Easy now, pop, whar are 
you rubbin' to, — thet's a mile from the place. She jest 



12 How Santa Claus 

made that up, didn't she, jest to aggrewate me and you ? 
Don't rub thar Why, dad ! " 

In the great quiet that seemed to have fallen upon the 
house the sigh of the near pines and the drip of leaves with- 
out was very distinct. Johnny's voice, too, was lowered as 
he went on, " Don't you take on now, for I'm gettin' all 
right fast. Wot's the boys doin' out thar?" 

The Old Man partly opened the door and peered through. 
His guests were sitting there sociably enough, and there 
were a few silver coins and a lean buckskin purse on the 
table. " Bettin' on suthin' — some little game or 'nother. 
They're all right," he replied to Johnny, and recommenced 
his rubbing. 

"I'd like to take a hand and win some money," said 
Johnny reflectively after a pause. 

The Old Man glibly repeated what was evidently a 
familiar formula, that if Johnny would wait until he struck 
it rich in the tunnel he'd have lots of money, &c., &c. 

"Yes," said Johnny, "but you don't. And whether you 
strike it or I win it, it's about the same. It's all luck. But 
it's mighty cur'o's about Chrismiss — ain't it ? Why do they 
call it Chrismiss ? " 

Perhaps from some instinctive deference to the overhear- 
ing of his guests, or from some vague sense of incongruity, 
the Old Man's reply was so low as to be inaudible beyond 
the room. 

"Yes," said Johnny, with some slight abatement of 
interest, " I've heerd o' him before. Thar, that'll do, dad. I 
don't ache near so bad as I did. Now wrap me tight in this 
yer blanket. So. Now," he added in a muffled whisper, 
"sit down yer by me till I go asleep." To assure himself 
of obedience, he disengaged one hand from the blanket 
and, grasping his father's sleeve, again composed himself' 
to rest. 



Came to Shnpsoris Bar, 1 3 

For some moments the Old Man waited patiently. Then 
the unwonted stillness of the house excited his curiosity, 
and without moving from the bed he cautiously opened the 
door with his disengaged hand, and looked into the main 
room. To his infinite surprise it was dark and deserted. 
But even then a smouldering log on the hearth broke, and 
by the upspringing blaze he saw the figure of Dick Bullen 
sitting by the dying embers. 

''Hello !" 

Dick started, rose, and came somewhat unsteadily toward 
him. 

" Whar's the boys ? " said the Old Man. 

" Gone up the canon on a little pasear. They're coming 
back for me in a minit. I'm waitin' round for 'em. What 
are you starin' at. Old Man?" he added with a forced 
laugh ; " do you think I'm drunk ? " 

The Old Man might have been pardoned the supposition, 
for Dick's eyes were humid and his face flushed. He 
loitered and lounged back to the chimney, yawned, shook 
himself, buttoned up his coat and laughed. " Liquor ain't 
so plenty as that. Old Man. Now don't you git up," he 
continued, as the Old Man made a movement to release his 
sleeve from Johnny's hand. " Don't you mind manners. 
Sit jest whar you be ; I'm goin' in a jiffy. Thar, that's them 
now." 

There was a low tap at the door. Dick Bullen opened 
it quickly, nodded " Good night " to his host, and disap- 
peared. The Old Man would have followed him but for 
the hand that still unconsciously grasped his sleeve. He 
could have easily disengaged it : it was small, weak, and 
emaciated. But perhaps because it was small, weak, and 
emaciated he changed his mind, and, drawing his chair 
closer to the bed, rested his head upon it. In this defence- 
less attitude the potency of his earlier potations surprised 



14 How Santa Claus 

him. The room flickered and faded before his eyes, reap- 
peared, faded again, went out, and left him — asleep. 

Meantime Dick Bullen, closing the door, confronted his 
companions. " Are you ready ? " said Staples. " Ready," 
said Dick ; " what's the time ? " " Past twelve," was the 
reply; "can you make it? — it's nigh on fifty miles, the 
round trip hither and yon." "I reckon," returned Dick 
shortly. "Whar's the mare?" "Bill and Jack's holdin' 
her at the crossin'." "Let 'em hold on a minit longer," 
said Dick. 

He turned and re-entered the house softly. By the light 
of the guttering candle and dying fire he saw that the door 
of the little room was open. He stepped toward it on tip- 
toe and looked in. The Old Man had fallen back in his 
chair, snoring, his helpless feet thrust out in a line with his 
collapsed shoulders, and his hat pulled over his eyes. 
Beside him, on a narrow wooden bedstead, lay Johnny, 
muffled tightly in a blanket that hid all save a strip of 
forehead and a few curls damp with perspiration. Dick 
Bullen made a step forward, hesitated, and glanced over his 
shoulder into the deserted room. Everything was quiet 
With a sudden resolution he parted his huge moustaches 
with both hands and stooped over the sleeping boy. But 
even a? he did so a mischievous blast, lying in wait, swooped 
down the chimney, rekindled the hearth, and lit up the 
room with a shameless glow from which Dick fled in bash- 
ful terror. 

His companions were already waiting for him at the 
crossing. Two of them were struggling in the darkness 
with some strange misshapen bulk, which as Dick came 
nearer took the semblance of a great yellow horse. 

It was the mare. She was not a pretty picture. From 
her Roman nose to her rising haunches, from her arched 
spine hidden by the stiff inachillas of a Mexican saddle, to 



Came to Simpsons Bai\ 15' 

her thick, straight," bony legs, there was not a line of equine 
grace. In her half-blind but wholly vicious white eyes, in 
her protruding under-lip, in her monstrous colour, there 
was nothing but ugliness and vice. 

" Now then," said Staples, " stand cl'ar of her heels, boys, 
and up with you. Don't miss your first holt of her mane, 
and mind ye get your off stirrup quick. Ready ! " 

There was a leap, a scrambling struggle, a bound, a wild 
retreat of the crowd, a circle of flying hoofs, two springless 
leaps that jarred the earth, a rapid play and jingle of spurs, . 
a plunge, and then the voice of Dick somewhere in the 
darkness. " All right ! " 

" Don't take the lower road back onless you're hard 
pushed for time ! Don't hold her in down hill. We'll be 
at the ford at five. G'lang ! Hoopa ! Mula ! GO ! " 

A splash, a spark struck from the ledge in the road, a 
clatter in the rocky cut beyond, and Dick was gone. 

Sing, O Muse, the ride of Richard Bullen ! Sing, O 
Muse, of chivalrous men ! the sacred quest, the doughty 
deeds, the battery of low churls, the fearsome ride and grue- 
some perils of the Flower of Simpson's Bar ! Alack ! she 
is dainty, this Muse ! She will have none of this bucking 
brute and swaggering, ragged rider, and I must fain follow 
him in prose, afoot ! 

It was one o'clock, and yet he had only gained Rattle- 
snake Hill. For in that time Jovita had rehearsed to him 
all her imperfections and practised all her vices. Thrice 
had she stumbled. Twice had she thrown up her Roman 
nose in a straight line with the reins, and, resisting bit and 
spur, struck out madly across country. Twice had she 
reared, and, rearing, fallen backward; and twice had the 
agile Dick, unharmed, regained his seat before she found 
her vicious legs again. And a mile beyond them, at the 



1 6 How Santa Claus 

foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake Creek. Dick knew that 
here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his entei- 
prise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her 
flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression. 
BuUied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill. 
Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with 
ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm. 
It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away. 
Nor need I state the time made in the descent ; it is written 
in the chronicles of Simpson's Bar. Enough that in another 
moment, as it seemed to Dick, she was splashing on 
the overflowed banks of Rattlesnake Creek. As Dick 
expected, the momentum she had acquired carried her 
beyond the point of balking, and, holding her well together 
for a mighty leap, they dashed into the middle of the 
swiftly flowing current. A few moments of kicking, wad- 
ing, and swimming, and Dick drew a long breath on the 
opposite bank. 

The road from Rattlesnake Creek to Red Mountain was 
tolerably level. Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek 
had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it 
had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for 
Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton con- 
ceits. Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit ; 
once she shied, but it was from a new, freshly-painted meet- 
ing-house at the crossing of the county road. Hollows, 
ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly-springing grasses, 
flew from beneath her rattling hoofs. She began to smell 
unpleasantly, once or twice she coughed slightly, but there 
was no abatement of her strength or speed. By two o'clock 
he had passed Red Mountain and begun the descent to 
the plain. Ten minutes later the driver of the fast Pioneer 
coach was overtaken and passed by a " man on a Pinto 
boss," — an event sufficiently notable for remark At half- 



Came to Simpsons Bar. i *j 

past two Dick rose in his stirrups with a great shout Stars 
were glittering through the rifted clouds, and beyond him, 
out of the plain, rose two spires, a flagstaff, and a straggling 
line of black objects. Dick jingled his spurs and swung 
his riata^ Jovita bounded forward, and in another moment 
they swept into Tuttleville, and drew up before the wooden 
piazza of " The Hotel of All Nations." 

What transpired that night at Tuttleville is not strictly a 
part of this record. Briefly I may state, however, that after 
Jovita had been handed over to a sleepy ostler, whom she 
at once kicked into unpleasant consciousness, Dick sallied 
out with the barkeeper for a tour of the sleeping town. 
Lights still gleamed from a few saloons and gambling-houses; 
but, avoiding these, they stopped before several closed shops, 
and by persistent tapping and judicious outcry roused the 
proprietors from their beds, and made them unbar the doors 
of their magazines and expose their wares. Sometimes they 
were met by curses, but oftener by interest and some con- 
cern in their needs, and the interview was invariably con- 
cluded by a drink. It was three o'clock before this pleasan- 
try was given over, and with a small waterproof bag of 
indiarubber strapped on his shoulders Dick returned to 
the hotel. But here he was waylaid by Beauty, — Beauty 
opulent in charms, affluent in dress, persuasive in speech, 
and Spanish in accent ! In vain she repeated the invitation 
in "Excelsior," happily scorned by all Alpine-climbing 
youth, and rejected by this child of the Sierras, — a rejection 
softened in this instance by a laugh and his last gold coin. 
And then he sprang to the saddle and dashed down the 
lonely street and out into the lonelier plain, where presently 
the lights, the black line of houses, the spires, and the flag- 
staff sank into the earth behind him again and were lost in 
the distance. 

The storm had cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, 

VOL. III. B 



1 8 How Santa Claus 

the outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was 
half-past four before Dick reached the meeting-house and 
the -crossing of the county road. To avoid the rising grade 
he had taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose 
viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound. It 
was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles 
more ; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it 
with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half-hour later 
reached the long level that led to Rattlesnake Creek. 
Another half-hour would bring him to the creek. He threw 
the reins lightly upon the neck of the mare, chirruped to 
her, and began to sing. 

Suddenly Jovita shied with a bound that would have 
unseated a less practised rider. Hanging to her rein was a 
figure that had leaped from the bank, and at the same time 
from the road before her arose a shadowy horse and rider. 
"Throw up your hands," commanded the second apparition, 
with an oath. 

Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink 
under him. He knew what it meant and was prepared. 

" Stand aside. Jack Simpson. I know you, you d — d 
thief ! Let me pass, or " 

He did not finish the sentence. Jovita rose straight in" 
the air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her 
bit with a single shake of her vicious head, and charged 
with deadly malevolence down on the impediment before 
her. An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwayman rolled 
over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred 
yards away. But the good right arm of her rider, shattered 
by a bullet, dropped helplessly at his side. 

Without slacking his speed he shifted the reins to his left 
hand. But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and 
tighten the saddle-girths that had slipped in the onset. 
This in his crippled condition took some time. He had 



Came to Simpson's Bar. 19 

no fear of pursuit, but looking up he saw that the eastern 
stars were already paling, and that the distant peaks had 
lost their ghostly whiteness, and now stood out blackly 
against a lighter sky. Day was upon him. Then com- 
pletely absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his 
wound, and mounting again dashed on toward Rattlesnake 
Creek. But now Jovita's breath came broken by gasps, 
Dick reeled in his saddle, and brighter and brighter grew 
the sky. 

Ride, Richard ; run, Jovita ; linger, O day ! 

For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears. 
"Was it exhaustion from loss of blood, or what ? He was 
'dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill, and did not 
recognise his surroundings. Had he taken the wrong road, 
or was this Rattlesnake Creek ? 

It was. But the brawling creek he had swam a few hours 
before had risen, more than doubled its volume, and now 
rolled a swift and resistless river between him and Rattle- 
snake Hill. For the first time that night Richard's heart 
sank within him. The river, the mountain, the quickening 
east, swam before his eyes. He shut them to recover his 
self-control. In that brief interval, by some fantastic mental 
process, the little room at Simpson's Bar and the figures of 
the sleeping father and son rose upon him. He opened his 
eyes wildly, cast off his coat, pistol, boots, and saddle, bound 
his precious pack tightly to his shoulders, grasped the bare 
flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and with a shout 
dashed into the yellow water. A cry rose from the opposite 
bank as the head of a man and horse struggled for a few 
moments against the battling current, and then were swept 
away amidst uprooted trees and whirling driftwood. 

The Old Man started and woke. The fire on the hearth 
was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its 



20 How SaJiia Ctaits Came to Simpson s Bar. 

socket, and somebody was rapping at the door. He opened 
it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping, half-naked 
figure that reeled agaiixst the doorpost. 

"Dick?" f 

" Hush ! Is he awake yet ? " 

"No; but, Dick?" 

"Dry up, you old' fool! Get me some whisky, quick T^ 
The Old Man flew and returned with — an empty bottle ! 
Dick would have sworn, but his strength was not equal to 
the occasion. He staggered, caught at the handle of the 
door, and motioned to the Old Man. 

" Thar's suthin' in my pack yer for Johnny, Take it off. 
I can't." 

The Old Man unstrapped the pack, and laid it before 
the exhausted man. 

" Open it, quick." 

He did so with trembling fingers. It contained only a 
few poor toys, — cheap and barbaric enough, goodness 
knows, but bright with paint and tinsel. One of them was 
broken ; another, I fear, was irretrievably ruined by water, 
and on the third — ah me ! there was a cruel spot. 

"It don't look like much, that's a fact," said Dick rue- 
fully. ..." But it's the best we could do. . . . Take 'em, 
Old Man, and put 'em in his stocking, and tell him — tell 

him, you know — hold me. Old Man" The Old Man 

caught at his sinking figure. " Tell him," said Dick, with 
a weak little laugh, — "tell him Sandy Glaus has come." 

And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, 
with one arm hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Glaus came 
to Simpson's Bar and fell fainting on the first threshold. 
The Ghristmas dawn came slowly after, touching the re- 
moter peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love. And it 
looked so tenderly on Simpson's Bar that the whole moun- 
tain, as if caught in a generous action, blushed to the skies. 



( 21 ) 



PART I.— WEST. 

The sun was rising in the foothills. But for an hour the 
black mass of Sierra eastward of Angel's had been outlined 
with fire, and the conventional morning had come two 
hours before with the down coach from Placervilie. The 
dry, cold, dewless California night still lingered in the long 
canons and folded skirts of Table Mountain. Even on the 
mountain road the air was still sharp, and that urgent 
necessity for something to keep out the chill, which sent 
the barkeeper sleepily among his bottles and wine-glasses 
at the station, obtained all along the road. 

Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of life was in 
the bar-rooms. A few birds twittered in the sycamores at 
the roadside, but long before that glasses had clicked and 
bottles gurgled in the saloon of the Mansion House. This 
was still lit by a dissipated-looking hanging-lamp, which 
was evidently the worse for having been up all night, and 
bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller of Angel's, 
who even then sputtered and flickered in /lis socket in an 
armchair below it, — a resemblance so plain that when the 
first level sunbeam pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, 
moved by a sentiment of consistency and compassion, put 
them both out together. 

Then the sun came up haughtily. When it had passed 
the eastern ridge it began, after its habit, to lord it over 



2 2 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 

Angel's, sending the thermometer up twenty degrees in as 
many minutes, driving the mules to the sparse shade of 
corrals and fences, making the red dust incandescent, and 
renewing its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses 
of the convex shield of pines that defended Table Mountain. 
Thither by nine o'clock all coolness had retreated, and the 
"outsides" of the up-stage plunged their hot faces in its 
aromatic shadows as in water. 

It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam coach 
to whip up his horses and enter Angel's at that remarkable 
pace which the woodcuts in the hotel bar-room represented 
to credulous humanity as the usual rate of speed of that 
conveyance. At sjch times the habitual expression of dis- 
dainful reticence and lazy official severity which he wore on 
the box became intensified as the loungers gathered about 
the vehicle, and only the boldest ventured to address him. 
It was the Hon. Judge Bees winger, Member of Assembly, 
who to-day presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength of 
his official position. 

*' Any political news from below, Bill ? " he asked, as the 
latter slowly descended from his lofty perch, without, how- 
ever, any perceptible coming down of mien or manner. 

"Not much," said Bill with deliberate gravity. "The 
President o' the United States hezn't bin hisself sens you 
refoosed that seat in the Cabinet. The ginral feeUn' in 
perlitical circles is one o' regret." 

Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too common 
in iVngel's to excite either a smile or a frown. Bill slowly 
entered the bar-room during a dry, dead silence, in which 
only a faint spirit of emulation survived. 

"Ye didn't bring up that agint o' Rothschild's thi? 
trip?" asked the barkeeper slowly, by way of vague con- 
tribution to the prevailing tone of conversation. 

" No," responded Bill with thoughtful exactitude. " He 



Airs. Skaggss Husbands, 23 

said he couldn't look inter that claim o' Johnson's without 
first consultin' the Bank o' England." 

The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present as the 
faded reveller the barkeeper had lately put out, and as the 
alleged claim notoriously possessed no attractions whatever 
to capitalists, expectation naturally looked to him for some 
response to this evident challenge. He did so by simply 
stating that he would "take sugar" in his, and by walking 
unsteadily towards the bar, as if accepting a festive invita- 
tion. To the credit of Bill be it recorded that he did not 
attempt to correct the mistake but gravely touched glasses 
with him, and after saying " Here's another nail in your 
coffin," — a cheerful sentiment, to which " And the hair all 
off your head," was playfully added by the others, — he 
threw off his liquor with a single dexterous movement of 
head and elbow, and stood refreshed. 

" Hello, old major ! " said Bill, suddenly setting down 
his glass. " Are you there ? " 

It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious that 
this epithet was addressed to him, retreated sideways to 
the doorway, where he stood beating his hat against the 
doorpost with an assumption of indifference that his down- 
cast but mirthful dark eyes and reddening cheek scarcely 
bore out. Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps it was 
to a certain cherubic outline of face and figure, perhaps to 
a peculiar trustfulness of expression, that he did not look 
half his age, which was really fourteen. 

Everybody in Angel's knew the boy. Either under the 
venerable title bestowed by Bill, or as "Tom Islington," 
after his adopted father, his was a familiar presence in the 
settlement, and the theme of much local criticism and 
comment. His waywardness, indolence, and unaccount- 
able amiability — a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous 
in a pioneer community like Angel's — had often been the 



24 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 

subject of fierce discussion. A large and reputable majority 
believed him destined for the gallows ; a minority not quite 
so reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling them- 
selves much about his future ; to one or two the evil pre- 
dictions of the majority possessed neither novelty nor 
terror. 

" Anything for me, Bill ? " asked the boy half mechani- 
cally, with the air of repeating some jocular formulary per- 
fectly understood by Bill. 

" Any thin' for you ! " echoed Bill, with an overacted 
severity equally well understood by Tommy, — "anythin' 
for you ? No ! And it's my opinion there won't be any- 
thin' for you ez long ez you hang around bar-rooms and 
spend your valooable time with loafers and bummers. Git ! " 

The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration 
of gesture (Bill had seized a decanter), before which the 
boy retreated still good-humouredly. Bill followed him to 
the door. " Dern my skin, if he hezn't gone off with that 
bummer Johnson," he added, as he looked down the road. 

" What's he expectin'. Bill?" asked the barkeeper. 

" A letter from his aunt. Reckon he'll hev to take it 
out in expectin'. Likely they're glad to get shut o' him." 

" He's leadin' a shiftless, idle Viie here," interposed the 
Member of Assembly. 

" Well," said Bill, who never allowed any one but him- 
self to abuse his protege, " seein' he ain't expectin' no offis 
from the hands of an enlightened constitooency, it is rayther 
a shiftless life." After delivering this Parthian arrow with 
a gratuitous twanging of the bow to indicate its offensive 
personality. Bill winked at the barkeeper, slowly resumed 
a pair of immense, bulgy buckskin gloves, which gave his 
fingers the appearance of being painfully sore and bandaged, 
strode to the door without looking at anybody, called out, 
" All aboard," with a perfunctory air of supreme indifference 



Mi's. Skaggss Husbands. 25 

whether the invitation was heeded, remounted his box, and 
drove stolidly away. 

Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation 
at once assumed a disrespectful attitude toward Tom and 
his relatives. It was more than intimated that Tom's 
alleged aunt was none other than Tom's real mother, while 
it was also asserted that Tom's alleged uncle did not him- 
self participate in this intimate relationship to the boy to 
an extent which the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed 
moral and necessary. Popular opinion also believed that 
Islington, the adopted father, who received a certain stipend 
ostensibly for the boy's support, retained it as a reward for 
his reticence regarding these facts. " He ain't ruinin' hisself 
by wastin' it on Tom," said the barkeeper, who possibly 
possessed positive knowledge of much of Islington's dis- 
bursements. But at this point exhausted nature languished 
among some of the debaters, and he turned from the frivo- 
lity of conversation to his severer professional duties. 

It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude of didac- 
tic propriety was not further excited by the subsequent 
conduct of his protege. For by this time Tom, half sup- 
porting the unstable Johnson, who developed a tendency 
to occasionally dash across the glaring road, but checked 
himself midway each time, reached the corral which adjoined 
the Mansion House. At its farther extremity was a pump 
and horse-trough. Here, without a word being spoken, but 
evidently in obedience to some habitual custom, Tom led 
his companion. With the boy's assistance, Johnson re- 
moved his coat and neckcloth, turned back the collar of 
his shirt, and gravely placed his head beneath the pump- 
spout. With equal gravity and deliberation, Tom took his 
place at the handle. For a few moments only the splash- 
.ing of water and regular strokes of the pump broke the 
solemnly ludicrous silence. Then there was a pause in 



26 Mrs. Skaoras's Htisbands, 



^>s 



which Johnson put his hands to his dripping head, felt 
it critically as if it belonged to somebody else, and raised 
his eyes to his companion. " That ought to fetch //," said 
Tom, in answer to the look. " Ef it don't," replied Johnson 
doggedly, with an air of relieving himself of all further 
responsibility in the matter, " it's got to, thet's all ! " 

If " it " referred to some change in the physiognomy of 
Johnson, " it " had probably been " fetched " by the process 
just indicated. The head that went under the pump was 
large, and clothed with bushy, uncertain-coloured hair ; the 
face was flushed, puffy, and expressionless, the eyes injected 
and full. The head that came out from under the pump 
was of smaller size and different shape, the hair straight, 
dark, and sleek, the face pale and hollow-cheeked, the eyes 
bright and restless. In the haggard, nervous ascetic that 
rose from the horse-trough there was very little trace of the 
Bacchus that had bowed there a moment before. Familiar 
as Tom must have been with the spectacle, he could not 
help looking inquiringly at the trough, as if expecting to see 
some traces of the previous Johnson in its shallow depths. 

A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye — a mere 
dusty, ravelled fringe of the green mantle that swept the 
high shoulders of Table Mountain — lapped the edge of 
the corral. The silent pair were quick to avail themselves 
of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun. They 
had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking 
quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and 
turned to his companion with an interrogative " Eh ? " 

" I didn't speak," said Tommy quietly. 

" Who said you spoke ? " said Johnson with a quick 
look of cunning. " In course you didn't speak, and I 
didn't speak neither. Nobody spoke. Wot makes you 
think you spoke?" he continued, peering curiously into 
Tommy's eyes. 



Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 27 

The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished 
as the boy stepped quietly to his companion's side, and 
took his arm without a word. 

"In course you didn't speak, Tommy," said Johnson 
deprecatingly. " You ain't a boy to go for to play an ole 
soaker like me. That's wot I like you for. Thet's wot I 
seed in you from the first. I sez, ' Thet 'ere boy ain't 
going to play you, Johnson ! You can go your whole pile 
on him, when you can't trust even a barkeep'. Thet's wot 
I said. Eh ? " 

This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the 
interrogation, and Johnson went on : " Ef I was to ask you 
another question, you wouldn't go to play me neither— 
would you, Tommy ? " 

" No," said the boy. 

" Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, without heed- 
ing the reply, but with a growing anxiety of eye and a 
nervous twitching of his lips,—" ef I was to ask you, fur 
instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit that jest passed, — eh ? 
— you'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. You 
wouldn't play the ole man on thet ? " 

" No," said Tommy quietly, "it ivas a jackass rabbit." 

"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, "ef it wore, 
say, fur instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you 
wouldn't play me, and say it did, onless " — he added, with 
intensified cunning — " onless it did? " 

" No," said Tommy, " of course I wouldn't ; but then, 
you see, // did." 

"It did?" 

"It did !" repeated Tommy stoutly; "a green hat with 
yellow ribbons — and — and — a red rosette." 

" I didn't get to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with slow 
and conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of 
relief; " but that ain't sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?" 



i 



28 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, 

Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There were 
great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead, and 
on the ends of his lank hair ; the hand which twitched 
spasmodically in his was cold and clammy, the other, 
which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as 
if attached to some deranged mechanism. Without any 
apparent concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted, and, 
seating himself on a log, motioned his companion to a 
place beside him. Johnson obeyed without a word. 
Slight as was the act, perhaps no other incident of their 
singular companionship indicated as completely the domi- 
nance of this careless, half-effeminate, but self-possessed boy 
over this doggedly self-willed, abnormally excited man. 

*' It ain't the square thing," said Johnson, after a pause, 
with a laugh that was neither mirthful nor musical, and 
frightened away a lizard that had been regarding the pair 
with breathless suspense, — "it ain't the square thing for 
jackass rabbits to wear hats. Tommy, — is it, eh ? " 

*' Well," said Tommy, with unmoved composure, " some- 
times they do and sometimes they don't. Animals are 
mighty queer." And here Tommy went off in an animated, 
but, 1 regret to say, utterly untruthful and untrustworthy 
account of the habits of California fauna, until he was 
interrupted by Johnson. 

"And snakes, eh. Tommy?" said the man, with an 
abstracted air, gazing intently on the ground before him. 

"And snakes," said Tommy, "but they don't bite, — at 
least, not that kind you see. There ! — don't move. Uncle 
Ben, don't move ; they're gone now. And it's about time 
you took your dose." 

Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon the log, 
but Tommy had as quickly caught his arm with one hand 
while he drew a bottle from his pocket with the other. 
Johnson paused and eyed the bottle. " Ef you say so, my 



Mrs. Skaggs's H2isbands. 29 

boy," he faltered, as his fingers closed nervously around it ; 
** say 'when,' then." He raised the bottle to his lips 
and took a long draught, the boy regarding him critically. 
" When," said Tommy suddenly. Johnson started, flushed, 
and returned the bottle quickly. But the colour that had 
risen to his cheek stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and 
as they moved away again the hand that rested on Tommy's 
shoulder was steadier. 

Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain, — a 
wandering trail through a tangled soHtude that might have 
seemed virgin and unbroken but for a few oyster-cans, 
yeast-powder tins, and empty bottles that had been appar- 
ently stranded by the " first low wash " of pioneer waves. 
On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tufts 
of gray hair caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange 
juxtaposition at its foot lay an empty bottle of incomparable 
bitters, — the chef-d'oeuvre of a hygienic civilisation, and 
blazoned with the arms of an all-healing republic. The 
head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had contained 
tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with the high- 
coloured effigy of a popular daiiseuse. And a little beyond 
this the soil was broken and fissured, there was a confused 
mass of roughly-hewn timber, a straggling line of sluicing, a 
heap of gravel and dirt, a rude cabin, and the claim of 
Johnson. 

Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from rain and 
cold, the cabin possessed but Httle advantage over the 
simple savagery of surrounding nature. It had all the 
practical directness of the habitation of some animal, with- 
out its comfort or picturesque quality ; the very birds that 
haunted it for food must have felt their own superiority 
as architects. It was inconceivably dirty, even with its 
scant capacity for accretion ; it was singularly stale, even 
in its newness and freshness of material. Unspeakably 



30 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, 

dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight visited it in a blind, 
aching, purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its 
outlines or of even tanning it into colour. 

The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals of sobriety 
was represented by half a dozen rude openings in the 
mountain-side, with the heaped-up debris of rock and 
gravel before the mouth of each. They gave very little 
evidence of engineering skill or constructive purpose, or 
indeed showed anything but the vague, successively aban- 
doned essays of their projector. To-day they served 
another purpose, for as the sun had heated the little cabin 
almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long dry 
shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine 
beams. Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, 
and with a sense of satisfaction threw himself panting upon 
its rocky floor. Here and there the grateful dampness was 
condensed in quiet pools of water, or in a monotonous and 
soothing drip from the rocks above. Without lay the staring 
sunlight — colourless, clarified, intense. 

For a few moments they lay resting on their elbows in 
blissful contemplation of the heat they had escaped "Wot 
do you say," said Johnson slowly, without looking at his 
companion, but abstractedly addressing himself to the land- 
scape beyond, — " wot do you say to two straight games fur 
one thousand dollars ? " 

"Make it five thousand," repHed Tommy reflectively 
also to the landscape, "and I'm in." 

" Wot do I owe you now ? " said Johnson after a 
lengthened silence. 

"One hundred and seventy-five thousand two hundred 
and fifty dollars," replied Tommy with business-like 
gravity. 

"Well," said Johnson after a dehberation commen- 
surate with the magnitude of the transaction, "ef you win, 



Mrs. Skaggss Husbands. 31 

call it a hundred and eighty thousand, round. War's the 
keerds?" 

They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a rock 
above his head. They were greasy and worn with service. 
Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand was still uncertain, — 
hovering, after dropping the cards, aimlessly about Tommy, 
and being only recalled by a strong nervous effort. Yet, 
notwithstanding this incapacity for even honest manipula- 
tion, Mr. Johnson covertly turned a knave from the bottom 
of the pack with such shameless inefficiency and gratuitous 
unskilfulness, that even Tommy was obliged to cough and 
look elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Possibly for 
this reason the young gentleman was himself constrained, 
by way of correction, to add a valuable card to his 
own hand, over and above the number he legitimately 
held. 

Nevertheless the game was unexciting and dragged 
lisdessly. Johnson won. He recorded the fact and the 
amount with a stub of pencil and shaking fingers in wander- 
ing hieroglyphics all over a pocket diary. Then there was 
a long pause, when Johnson slowly drew something from 
his pocket and held it up before his companion. It was 
apparently a dull red stone. 

"Ef," said Johnson slowly, with his old look of simple 
cunning, — "ef you happened to pick up sich a rock ez that, 
Tommy, what might you say it was ? " 

" Don't know," said Tommy. 

"Mightn't you say," continued Johnson cautiously, "that 
it was gold or silver ? " 

"Neither," said Tommy promptly. 

"Mightn't you say it was quicksilver? Mightn't you say 
that ef thar was a friend o' yourn ez knew war to go and 
turn out ten ton of it a day, and every ton worth two 
thousand dollars, that he had a soft thing, a very soft thing, 



I 



32 Mrs, Skaggs s Husbands. 

— allowin', Tommy, that you used sich language, which you 
don't?" 

"But," said the boy, coming to the point with great 
directness, " do you know where to get it ? have you struck 
it, Uncle Ben ? " 

Johnson looked carefully round. " I hev, Tommy. 
Listen. I know whar thar's cartloads of it. But thar's 
only one other specimen — the mate to this yer — thet's 
above ground, and thet's in 'Frisco. Thar's an agint comin' 
up in a day or two to look into it. I sent for him. Eh ? " 

His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on Tommy's 
face now, but the boy showed neither surprise nor interest. 
Least of all did he betray any recollection of Bill's ironical 
and gratuitous corroboration of this part of the story. 

"Nobody knows it," continued Johnson in a nervous 
whisper, — "nobody knows it but you and the agint in 
'Frisco. The boys workin' round yar passes by and sees 
the old man grubbin' away, and no signs o' colour, not 
even rotten quartz; the boys loafin' round the Mansion 
House sees the old man lyin' round free in bar-rooms, and 
thay laughs and sez, 'Played out,' and spects nothin'. 
Maybe ye think they specks suthin' now, eh ? " queried 
Johnson, suddenly, with a sharp look of suspicion. 

Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone at a 
passing rabbit, but did not reply. 

"When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy," continued 
Johnson, apparently reassured, " the fust day you kem and 
pumped for me, an entire stranger, and hevin' no call to do 
it, I sez, 'Johnson,- Johnson,' sez I, 'yer's a boy you kin 
trust. Yer's a boy that won't play you ; yer's a chap that's 
white and square,' — white and square. Tommy : them's the 
very words I used." 

He paused for a moment, and then went on in a confiden- 
tial whisper, " You want capital, Johnson,' sez I, 'to develop 



Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, 33 

your resources, and you want a pardner. Capital you can 
send for, but your pardner, Johnson, — your pardner is right 
yer. And his name, it is Tommy Ishngton.' Them's the 
very words I used." 

He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his 
knees, "It's six months ago sens I made you my pardner. 
Thar ain't a lick I've struck sens then, Tommy, thar ain't 
a han'ful o' yearth I've washed, thar ain't a shovelful o' 
rock I've turned over, but I tho't o' you. 'Share, and 
share alike,' sez I. When I wTote to my agint, I wTote 
ekal for my pardner. Tommy Islington, he hevin' no call to 
know ef the same was man or boy." 

He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have 
laid his hand caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest 
affection there was a singular element of awed restraint and 
even fear, — a suggestion of something withheld even his 
fullest confidences, a hopeless perception of some vague 
barrier that never could be surmounted. He may have 
been at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which 
Tommy raised to his, there was thorough intellectual appre- 
ciation, critical good-humour, even feminine softness, but 
nothing more. His nervousness somewhat heightened by 
his embarrassment, he went on with an attempt at calmness 
which his twitching white lips and unsteady fingers made 
pathetically grotesque. " Thar's a bill o' sale in my bunk, 
made out accordin' to law, of an ekal ondivided half of the 
claim, and the consideration is two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars — gambling debts — gambling debts from 
me to you, Tommy, you understand ? " — nothing could 
exceed the intense cunning of his eye at this moment — 
*'and then thar's a will." 

" A will ? " said Tommy in amused surprise. 

Johnson looked frightened. 

VOL. III. c 



34 Mrs. Skaggss Husbands, 

"Eh?" he said hurriedly, ''wot will? Who said any- 
thin' 'bout a will, Tommy ? ^' 

" Nobody," replied Tommy with unblushing calm. 

Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, wrung 
the damp ends of his hair with his fingers, and went on : 
" Times when I'm took bad ez I was to-day, the boys about 
yer sez — you sez, maybe. Tommy — it's whisky. It ain't, 
Tommy. It's pizen — quicksilver pizen. That's what's the 
matter with me. I'm salivated ! Salivated with merkery." 

" I've heerd o' it before," continued Johnson, appealing 
to the boy, " and ez a boy o' permiskus reading, I reckon 
you hev too. Them men as works in cinnabar sooner or 
later gets salivated. It's bound to fetch 'em some time. 
Salivated by merkery." 

" What are you goin' to do for it ? " asked Tommy. 

*' When the agint comes up, and I begins to realise on 
this yer mine," said Johnson contemplatively, " I goes to 
New York. I sez to the barkeep' o' the hotel, ' Show me 
the biggest doctor here.' He shows me. T sez to him, 
' Salivated by merkery — a year's standin' — how much ? ' 
He sez, ' Five thousand dollars, and take two o' these pills 
at bedtime, and an ekil number o' powders at meals, and 
come back in a week.' And I goes back in a week, cured, 
and signs a certifikit to that effect." 

Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's eye, he 
went on. 

"So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and I sez, 
* Show me the biggest, fashionblest house thet's for sale yer.* 
And he sez, 'The biggest nat'rally b'longs to John Jacob 
Astor.' And I sez, ' Show him,' and he shows him. And 
I sez, ' Wot might you ask for this yer house ? ' And he 
looks at me scornful, and sez, ' Go 'way, old man ; you 
must be sick.' And I fetches him one over the left eye, 



Mrs. Skaggs^s Husbands. 35 

and he apologises, and I gives him his own price for the 
house. I stocks that nouse with mahogany furniture and 
pervisions, and thar we Uves, — you and me, Tommy, you 
and me !" 

The sun no longer shone upon the hillside. The shadows 
of the pines were beginning to creep over Johnson's claim, 
and the air within the cavern was growing chill. In the 
gathering darkness his eyes shone brightly as he went on : 
" Then thar comes a day when we gives a big spread. We 
invites govners, members o' Congress, gentlemen o' fashion, 
and the like. And among 'em I invites a Man as holds his 
head very high, a Man I once knew ; but he doesn't know 
I knows him, and he doesn't remember me. And he comes 
and he sits opposite me, and I watches him. And he's 
very airy, this Man, and very chipper, and he wipes his 
mouth with a white hankercher, and he smiles, and he 
ketches my eye. And he sez, ' A glass o' wine with you, 
Mr. Johnson ; ' and he fills his glass and I fills mine, and 
we rises. And I heaves that wine, glass and all, right into 
his damned grinnin' face. And he jumps for me — for he 
is very game this Man, very game — but some on 'em grabs 
him, and he sez, ' Who be you ? ' And I sez, ' Skaggs ! 
Damn you, Skaggs ! Look at me ! Gimme back my wife 
and child, gimme back the money you stole, gimme back 
the good name you took away, gimme back the health you 
ruined, gimme back the last twelve years ! Give 'em to 
me, damn you, quick, before I cuts your heart out ! ' And 
naterally. Tommy, he can't do it. And so I cuts his heart 
out, my boy ; I cuts his heart out." 

The purely animal fury of his eye suddenly changed 
again to cunning. " You think they hangs me for it, 
Tommy, but they don't. Not much, Tommy. I goes to 
the biggest lawyer there, and I says to him, ' Salivated by 
merkery — you hear me — salivated by merkery.' And he 



36 Mrs. Skaggss Husbands. 

winks at me, and he goes to the judge, and he sez, * This 
yer unfortnet man isn't responsible — he's been salivated by 
merkery.' And he brings witnesses ; you comes, Tommy, 
and you sez ez how you've seen me took bad afore ; and 
the doctor, he comes, and he sez as how he's seen me 
frightful ; and the jury, without leavin' their seats, brings in 
a verdict o' justifiable insanity, — salivated by merkery." 

In the excitement of his climax he had risen to his feet, 
but would have fallen had not Tommy caught him and led 
him into the open air. In this sharper light there was 
an odd change visible in his yellow-white face, — a change 
which caused Tommy to hurriedly support him, half leading, 
half dragging him toward the little cabin. When they had 
reached it. Tommy placed him on a rude " bunk," or shelf, 
and stood for a moment in anxious contemplation of the 
tremor-stricken man before him. Then he said rapidly, 
" Listen, Uncle Ben. I'm goin' to town — to town, you un- 
derstand — for the doctor. You're not to get up or move 
on any account until I return. Do you hear ? " Johnson 
nodded violently. " I'll be back in two hours." In 
another moment he was gone. 

For an hour Johnson kept his word. Then he suddenly 
sat up, and began to gaze fixedly at a corner oi the cabin. 
From gazing at it he began to smile, from smiling at it he 
began to talk, from talking at it he began to scream, from 
screaming he passed to cursing and sobbing wildly. Then 
he lay quiet again. 

He was so still that to merely human eyes he might have 
seemed asleep or dead. But a squirrel, that, emboldened 
by the stillness, had entered from the roof, stopped short 
upon a beam above the bunk, for he saw that the man's 
foot was slowly and cautiously moving towards the floor, 
and that the man's eyes were as intent and watchful as his 
own. Presently, still without a sound, both feet were upon 



I 



Mrs. Skaggss Husbands. 37 



the floor. And then the bunk creaked, and the squirrel 
whisked into the eaves of the roof. When he peered forth 
again, everything was quiet, and the man was gone. 

An hour later two muleteers on the Placerville Road 
passed a man with dishevelled hair, glaring, bloodshot eyes, 
and clothes torn with bramble and stained with the red 
dust of the mountain. They pursued him, when he turned 
fiercely on the foremost, wrested a pistol from his grasp, 
and broke away. Later still, when the sun had dropped 
behind Payne's Ridge, the underbrush on Deadwood 
Slope crackled with a stealthy but continuous tread. It 
must have been an animal whose dimly-outlined bulk, in the 
gathering darkness, showed here and there in vague but 
incessant motion ; it could be nothing but an animal whose 
utterance was at once so incoherent, monotonous, and 
unremitting. Yet, when the sound came nearer, and the 
chaparral was parted, it seemed to be a man, and that man 
Johnson. 

Above the baying of phantasmal hounds that pressed him 
hard and drove him on, with never rest or mercy ; above 
the lashing of a spectral whip that curled about his limbs, 
sang in his ears, and continually stung him forward ; above 
the outcries of the unclean shapes that thronged about him, 
— he could still distinguish one real sound, the rush and 
sweep of hurrying waters. The Stanislaus River ! A 
thousand feet below him drove its yellowing current. 
Through all the vacillations of his unseated mind he had 
clung to one idea — to reach the river, to lave in it, to swim 
it if need be, but to put it for ever between him and the 
harrying shapes, to drown for ever in its turbid depths the 
thronging spectres, to wash away in its yellow flood all stains 
and colour of the past. And now he was leaping from 
boulder to boulder, from blackened stump to stump, from 
gnarled bush to bush, caught for a moment and withheld by 



I 



38 Mrs. Skaggss Husbands, 

clinging vines, or plunging downward into dusty hollows, 
until, rolling, dropping, sliding, and stumbling, he reached 
the river-bank, whereon he fell, rose, staggered forward, and 
fell again with outstretched arms upon a rock that breasted 
the swift current. And there he lay as dead. 

A few stars came out hesitatingly above Deadwood 
Slope. A cold wind that had sprung up with the going 
down of the sun fanned them into momentary brightness, 
swept the heated flanks of the mountain, and ruflled the 
river. Where the fallen man lay there was a sharp curve in 
the stream, so that m the gathering shadows the rushing 
water seemed to leap out of the darkness and to vanish 
again. Decayed driftwood, trunks of trees, fragments of 
broken sluicing — the wash and waste of many a mile — 
swept into sight a moment, and were gone. All of decay, 
wreck, and foulness gathered in the long circuit of mining- 
camp and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of a crude 
and wanton civilisation, reappeared for an instant, and then 
were hurried away in the darkness and lost. No wonder 
that, as the wind ruffled the yellow waters, the waves seemed 
to lift their unclean hands toward the rock whereon the 
fallen man lay, as if eager to snatch him from it, too, and 
hurry him toward the sea. 

It was very still. In the clear air a horn blown a mile 
away was heard distinctly. The jingling of a spur and a 
laugh on the highway over Payne's Ridge sounded clearly 
across the river. The rattling of harness and hoofs fore- 
told for many minutes the approach of the Wingdam coach, 
that at last, with flashing lights, passed within a few feet of 
the rock. Then for an hour all again was quiet. Presently 
the moon, round and full, lifted herself above the serried 
ridge and looked down upon the river. At first the bared 
peak of Deadwood Hill gleamed white and skull-like. Then 
the shadows of Payne's Ridge cast on the slope slowly sank 



Mrs. Skaggss Husbands, 39 

away, leaving the unshapely stumps, the dusty fissures, and 
clinging outcrop <5f Deadwood Slope to stand out in black 
and silver. Still stealing softly downward, the moonlight 
touched the bank and the rock, and then glittered brighdy 
on the river. The rock was bare and the man was gone, 
but the river still hurried swiftly to the sea. 

" Is there anything for me ? " asked Tommy Islington, 
as, a week after, the stage drew up at the Mansion House, 
and Bill slowly entered the bar-room. Bill did not reply, 
but, turning to a stranger who had entered with him, indi- 
cated with a jerk of his finger the boy. The stranger turned 
with an air half of business, half of curiosity, and looked 
critically at Tommy. " Is there anything for me ? " repeated 
Tommy, a little confused at the silence and scrutiny. Bill 
walked deliberately to the bar, and, placing his back against 
it, faced Tommy with a look of demure enjoyment. 

"Ef," he remarked slowly, — '*ef a hundred thousand 
dollars dowm and half a million in perspektive is ennything, 
Major, THERE IS !" 



PART II.— EAST. 

It was characteristic of Angel's that the disappearance of 
Johnson, and the fact that he had left his entire property to 
Tommy, thrilled the community but slightly in comparison 
with the astounding discovery that he had anything to leave. 
The finding of a cinnabar lode at Angel's absorbed all 
collateral facts or subsequent details. Prospectors from 
adjoining camps thronged the settlement ; the hillside for 
a mile on either side of Johnson's claim was staked out and 
pre-empted ; trade received a sudden stimulus ; and, in 
the excited rhetoric of the "''Weekly Record," "a new era 
had broken upon Angel's." " On Thursday last," added 



h 



40 Mrs. Skaggss Husbands. 

that paper, " over five hundred dollars were taken in over 
the bar of the Mansion House." 

Of the fate of Johnson there w^as little doubt. He had 
been last seen lying on a boulder on the river-bank by out- 
side passengers of the Wingdam night coach, and when 
Finn of Robinson's Ferry admitted to have fired three shots 
from a revolver at a dark object struggling in the water neaTr 
the ferry, which he " suspicioned " to be a bear, the ques- 
tion seemed to be settled. Whatever might have been the 
falhbility of his judgment, of the accuracy of his aim there 
could be no doubt. The general belief that Johnson, after 
possessing himself of the muleteer's pistol, could have run 
amuck, gave a certain retributive justice to this story, which 
rendered it acceptable to the camp. 

It was also characteristic of Angel's that no feehng of 
envy or opposition to the good fortune of Tommy Islington 
prevailed there. That he was thoroughly cognisant, from 
the first, of Johnson's discovery, that his attentions to him 
were interested, calculating, and speculative, was, however, 
the general belief of the majority, — a belief that, singularly 
enough, awakened the first feelings of genuine respect for 
Tommy ever shown by the camp. " He ain't no fool ; 
Yuba Bill seed thet from the first," said the barkeeper. It 
was Yuba Bill who applied for the guardianship of Tommy 
after his accession to Johnson's claim, and on whose bonds 
the richest men of Calaveras were represented. It was 
Yuba Bill, also, when Tommy was sent East to finish his 
education, accompanied him to San Francisco, and, before 
parting with his charge on the steamer's deck, drew him 
aside, and said, " Ef at enny time you want enny money. 
Tommy, over and 'bove your 'lowance, you kin write ; but 
ef you'll take my advice," he added, with a sudden huski- 
ness mitigating the severity of his voice, "you'll forget every 
derned ole spavined, string-halted bummer, as you ever met 



M7'S. Skaggs's Husbands, 41 

or knew at Angel's, — ev'ry one, Tommy, — ev'ry one ! And 
so — boy — take care of yourself — and — and — God bless ye, 
and pertikerly d — n me for a first-class A i fool." It was 
Yuba Bill, also, after this speech, glared savagely around, 
walked down the crow^ded gang-plank with a rigid and 
aggressive shoulder, picked a quarrel with his cabman, and, 
after bundling that functionary into his own vehicle, took 
the reins himself, and drove furiously to his hotel. " It 
cost me," said Bill, recounting the occurrence somewhat 
later at Angel's, — "it cost me a matter o' twenty dollars 
afore the jedge the next mornin' ; but you kin bet high thet 
I taught them 'Frisco chaps suthin' new about drivin'. I 
didn't make it lively in Montgomery Street for about ten 
minutes— oh no !" 

And so by degrees the two original locators of the great 
Cinnabar Lode faded from the memory of Angel's, and 
Calaveras knew them no more. In five years their very 
names had been forgotten ; in seven the name of the town 
w^as changed ; in ten the town itself was transported bodily 
to the hillside, and the chimney of the Union Smelting 
Works by night flickered like a corpse-light over the site of 
Johnson's cabin, and by day poisoned the pure spices of 
the pines. Even the Mansion House was dismantled, and 
the Wingdam stage deserted the highway for a shorter cut 
by Quicksilver City. Only the bared crest of Deadwood 
Hill, as of old, sharply cut the clear blue sky, and at its 
base, as of old, the Stanislaus River, unwearied and unrest- 
ing, babbled, whispered, and hurried away to the sea. 

A midsummer's day was breaking lazily on the Atlantic. 
There was not wind enough to move the vapours in the 
foggy offing, but when the vague distance heaved against a 
violet sky there were dull red streaks that, growing brighter, 
presently painted out the stars. Soon the brown rocks of 



42 Mrs. Skaggss Husbands. 

Greyport appeared faintly suffused, and then the whole 
ashen line of dead coast was kindled, and the lighthouse 
beacons went out one by one. And then a hundred sail, 
before invisible, started out of the vapoury horizon, and 
pressed toward the shore. It was morning, indeed, and' 
some of the best society in Greyport, having been up all 
night, were thinking it was time to go to bed. 

For as the sky flashed brighter it fired the clustering red 
roofs of a picturesque house by the sands that had all that 
night, from open lattice and illuminated balcony, given light 
and music to the shore. It glittered on the broad crystal 
spaces of a great conservatory that looked upon an exquisite 
lawn, where all night long the blended odours of sea and 
shore had swooned under the summer moon. But it 
wrought confusion among the coloured lamps on the long 
veranda, and startled a group of ladies and gentlemen who 
had stepped from the drawing-room window to gaze upon 
it. It was so searching and sincere in its way, that, as the 
carriage of the fairest Miss Gillyflower rolled away, that 
peerless young woman, catching sight of her face in the 
oval mirror, instantly pulled down the blinds, and, nest- 
ling the whitest shoulders in Greyport against the crimson 
cushions, went to sleep. 

" How haggard everybody is ! Rose, dear, you look 
almost intellectual," said Blanche Masterman. 

" I hope not," said Rose simply. " Sunrises are very 
trying. Look how that pink regularly puts out Mrs. Brown- 
Robinson, hair and all ! " 

"The angels," said the Count de Nugat, with a polite 
gesture toward the sky, "must have find these celestial 
combinations very bad for the toilette.''^ 

" They're safe in white, — except when they sit for their 
pictures in Venice," said Blanche. " How fresh Mr. Isling- 
ton looks ! It's really uncomplimentary to us." 



Mrs. Skaggss Htcsbands, 43 

" 1 suppose the sun recognises in me no rival," said the 
young man demurely. " But," he added, " I have lived 
much in the open air and require very little sleep." 

" How delightful ! " said Mrs. Brown-Robinson in a low, 
enthusiastic voice, and a manner that held the glowing 
sentiment of sixteen and the practical experiences of thirty- 
two in dangerous combination ; — " how perfectly delightful ! 
What sunrises you must have seen, and in such wild, 
romantic places ! How I envy you ! My nephew was a 
classmate of yours, and has often repeated to me those 
charming stories you tell of your adventures. Won't you 
tell some now ? Do ! How you must tire of us and this 
artificial life here, so frightfully artificial, you know " (in a 
confidential whisper) ; " and then to think of the days 
when you roamed the great West with the Indians, and 
the bisons, and the grizzly bears ! Of course, you have 
seen grizzly bears and bisons ? " 

" Of course he has, dear," said Blanche a little pettishly, 
throwing a cloak over her shoulders, and seizing her chaperon 
by the arm ; " his earliest infancy was soothed by bisons, 
and he proudly points to the grizzly bear as the playmate 
of his youth. Come with me, and I'll tell you all about it 
How good it is of you," she added, sotto voce^ to Islington 
as he stood by the carriage, — " how perfectly good it is of 
you to be like those animals you tell us of, and not know 
your full power. Think, with your experiences and our 
credulity, what stories you 7night tell ! And you are going 
to walk? Good night, then." A slim, gloved hand was 
frankly extended from the window, and the next moment 
the carriage rolled away. 

"Isn't Islington throwing away a chance there?" said 
Captain Merwin on the veranda. 

" Perhaps he couldn't stand my lovely aunt's super- 
added presence. But then, he's the guest of Blanche's 



44 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 

father, and I daresay they see enough of each other as 
it is." 

" But isn't it a rather dangerous situation ? " 

" For him, perhaps ; although he's awfully old, and very 
queer. For her, with an experience that takes in all the 
available men in both hemispheres, ending with Nugat 
over there, I should say a man more or less wouldn't affect 
her much, anyway. Of course," he laughed, " these are 
the accents of bitterness. But that was last year." 

Perhaps Islington did not overhear the speaker ; perhaps, 
if he did, the criticism was not new. He turned carelessly 
away, and sauntered out on the road to the sea. Thence 
he strolled along the sands toward the cliffs, where, meeting 
an impediment in the shape of a garden wall, he leaped it 
with a certain agile, boyish ease and experience, and struck 
across an open lawn toward the rocks again. The best 
society of Greyport were not early risers, and the spectacle 
of a trespasser in an evening dress excited only the criticism 
of grooms hanging about the stables, or cleanly housemaids 
on the broad verandas that in Greyport architecture dutifully 
gave upon the sea. Only once, as he entered the boundaries 
of Cliffwood Lodge, the famous seat of Renwyck Masterman, 
was he aware of suspicious scrutiny ; but a slouching figure 
that vanished quickly in the lodge offered no opposition to 
his progress. Avoiding the pathway to the lodge, Islington 
kept along the rocks until, reaching a little promontory and 
rustic pavilion, he sat down and gazed upon the sea. 

And presently an infinite peace stole upon him. Except 
where the waves lapped lazily the crags below, the vast 
expanse beyond seemed unbroken by ripple, heaving only 
in broad ponderable sheets, and rhythmically, as if still in 
sleep. The air was filled with a luminous haze that caught 
and held the direct sunbeams. In the deep calm that lay 
upon the sea, it seemed to Islington that all the tenderness 



Jllrs. Skaggss Husbcinds. 45 

of culture, magic of wealth, and spell of refinement that for 
years had wrought upon that favoured shore had extended 
its gracious influence even here. What a pampered and 
caressed old ocean it was ; cajoled, flattered, and feted 
where it lay ! An odd recollection of the turbid Stanislaus 
hurrying by the ascetic pines, of the grim outlines of Dead- 
wood Hill, swam before his eyes, and made the yellow 
green of the velvet lawn and graceful foliage seem almost 
tropical by contrast. And, looking up, a few yards distant 
he beheld a tall slip of a girl gazing upon the sea — Blanche 
Masterman. 

She had plucked somewhere a large fan-shaped leaf, 
which she held parasol-wise, shading the blonde masses of 
her hair, and hiding her gray eyes. She had changed her 
festal dress, with its amplitude of flounce and train, for a 
closely fitting half-antique habit whose scant outlines would 
have been trying to limbs less shapely, but which prettily 
accented the graceful curves and sweeping lines of this 
Greyport goddess. As Islington rose, she came toward 
him with a frankly outstretched hand and unconstrained 
manner. Had she observed him first ? I don t know. 

They sat down together on a rustic seat. Miss Blanche 
facing the sea, and shading her eyes with the leaf. 

" I don't really know how long I have been sitting here," 
said Islington, " or whether I have not been actually asleep 
and dreaming. It seemed too lovely a morning to go to 
bed. But you ? " 

From behind the leaf, it appeared that Miss Blanche, on 
retiring, had been pursued by a hideous four-winged insect 
which defied the efforts of herself and maid to dislodge. 
Odin, the Spitz dog, had insisted upon scratching at the door. 
And it made her eyes red to sleep in the morning. And 
she had an early call to make. And the sea looked lovely. 

"I'm glad to find you here, whatever be the cause," 



46 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 

said Islington with his old directness. " To-day, as you 
know, is my last day in Greyport, and it is much pleasanter 
to say good-bye under this blue sky than even beneath 
your father's wonderful frescoes yonder. I want to remem- 
ber you, too, as part of this pleasant prospect which belongs ~ 
to^us all, rather than recall you in anybody's particular 
setting." 

" I know," said Blanche with equal directness, " that 
houses are one of the defects of our civiHsation; but I 
don't think I ever heard the idea as elegantly expressed 
before. Where do you go ? " 

" I don't know yet. I have several plans. I may go to 
South America and become president of one of the re- 
publics, — I am not particular which. I am rich, but in that 
part of America which lies outside of Greyport it is neces- 
sary for every man to have some work. My friends think 
I should have some great aim in life, with a capital A. But 
I was born a vagabond, and a vagabond I shall probably 
die." 

'' I don't know anybody in South America," said Blanche 
languidly. " There were two girls here last season, but 
they didn't wear stays in the house, and their white frocks 
never were properly done up. If you go to South America, 
you must write to me." 

" I will. Can you tell me the name of this flower which 
I found in your greenhouse. It looks much like a Cali- 
fornia blossom." 

" Perhaps it is. Father bought it of a half-crazy old man 
who came here one day. Do you know him ? " 

Islington laughed. " I am afraid not. But let me pre- 
sent this in a less business-like fashion." 

" Thank you. Remind me to give you one in return be- 
fore you go, — or will you choose yourself?" 

They had both risen as by a common instinct. 



Mrs. Skaggis Husbands. 47 

"Good-bye." 

The cool, flower-like hand lay in his for an instant. 

" Will you oblige me by putting aside that leaf a moment 
before I go ? " 

" But my eyes are red, and I look like a perfect fright." 

Yet, after a long pause, the leaf fluttered down, and a 
pair of very beautiful but withal very clear and critical eyes 
met his. Islington was constrained to look away. When 
he turned again she was gone. 

" Mr. Hislington, — sir ! " 

It was Chalker, the English groom, out of breath with 
running. 

" Seein' you alone, sir — beg your pardon, sir — but there's 
a person " 

" A person ! what the devil do you mean ? Speak Eng- 
lish — no, damn it, I mean don't," said Islington snappishly. 

" I said a person, sir. Beg pardon — no offence — but not 
a gent, sir. In the lib'ry." 

A little amused even through the utter dissatisfaction 
with himself and vague loneliness that had suddenly come 
upon him, Islington, as he walked toward the lodge, asked, 
" Why isn't he a gent ? " 

" No gent — beggin' your pardin, sir — 'ud guy a man in 
sarvis, sir. Takes me 'ands so, sir, as I sits in the rumble 
at the gate, and puts 'em downd so, sir, and sez, ' Put 'em 
in your pocket, young man, — or is it a road agint you ex- 
pects to see, that you 'olds hup your 'ands, hand crosses 
'em like to that,' sez he. * 'Old 'ard,' sez he, ' on the short 
curves, or you'll bust your precious crust,' sez he. And 
hasks for you, sir. This way, sir." 

They entered the lodge. Islington hurried down the long 
Gothic hall and opened the library door. 

In an arm-chair, in the centre of the room, a man sat 
apparently contemplating a large, stiff, yellow hat with an 



48 Mrs. Skaggss Husbands, 

enormous brim, that was placed on the floor before him. 
His hands rested lightly between his knees, but one foot 
was drawn up at the side of his chair in a peculiar manner. 
In the first glance that Islington gave, the attitude in some 
odd, irreconcilable way suggested a brake. In another 
moment he dashed across the room, and, holding out both 
hands, cried, "Yuba Bill!" 

The man rose, caught Islington by the shoulders, wheeled 
him round, hugged him, felt of his ribs like a good-natured 
ogre, shook his hands violently, laughed, and then said 
somewhat ruefully, " And however did you know me ? " 

Seeing that Yuba Bill evidently regarded himself as in 
some elaborate disguise, Islington laughed, and suggested 
that it must have been instinct. 

" And you ? " said Bill, holding him at arm's length, and 
surveying him critically, — " you ! — toe think — toe think — a 
little cuss no higher nor a trace, a boy as I've flicked outer 
the road with a whip time in agin, a boy ez never hed much 
clothes to speak of, turned into a sport ! " 

Islington remembered, with a thrill of ludicrous terror, 
that he still wore his evening dress. 

" Turned," continued Yuba Bill severely, — " turned into 
a restyourant waiter, — a garsong ! Eh, Alfonse, bring . me 
a patty de foy grass and an omelet, demme ! " 

" Dear old chap ! " said Islington, laughing, and trying 
to put his hand over Bill's bearded mouth, " but you — you 
don't look exactly like yourself ! You're not well, Bill." 
And indeed, as he turned towards the light. Bill's eyes 
appeared cavernous, and his hair and beard thickly streaked 
with gray. 

*' Maybe it's this yer harness," said Bill a little anxiously. 
" When I hitches on this yer curb " (he indicated a massive 
gold watch-chain with enormous links), " and mounts 
this ' morning star ' " (he pointed to a very large sohtaire 



Mrs. Skaggss Htcsba^ids. 49 

pin which had the appearance of blistering his whole shirt- 
front), "it kinder weighs heavy on me, Tommy. Other- 
wise I'm all right, my boy — all right." But he evaded 
Islington's keen eye and turned from the light. 

" You have something to tell me, Bill," said Islington sud- 
denly and with almost brusque directness ; " out with it." 

Bill did not speak, but moved uneasily toward his hat. 

" You didn't come three thousand miles, without a word 
of warning, to talk to me of old times," said Ishngton more 
kindly, " glad as I would have been to see you. It isn't 
your way. Bill, and you know it. We shall not be disturbed 
here," he added, in reply to an inquiring glance that Bill 
directed to the door, "and I am ready to hear you." 

" Firstly, then," said Bill, drawing his chair nearer 
Islington, " answer me one question, Tommy, fair and 
square, and up and down." 

•'Go on," said Islington with a slight smile. 

"Ef I should say to you. Tommy — say to you to-day, 
right here, you must come with me — you must leave this 
place for a month, a year, two years, maybe, perhaps for 
ever — is there anything that 'ud keep you — anything, my 
boy, ez you couldn't leave ? " 

" No," said Tommy quietly ; " I am only visiting here. 
I thought of leaving Greyport to-day." 

" But if I should say to you. Tommy, come with me on 
a pasear to Chiny, to Japan, to South Ameriky, p'r'aps, 
could you go ? " 

*' Yes," said Islington after a slight pause. 

" Thar isn't ennything," said Bill, drawing a little closer, 
and lowering his voice confidentially, — "ennything in the 
way of a young woman — you understand, Tommy — ez 
would keep you ? They're mighty sweet about here ; and 
whether a man is young or old. Tommy, there's always 
some woman as is brake or whip to him !" 

VOL. III. D 



50 Mrs. Skaggs^s Hicsbands. 

In a certain excited bitterness that characterised the 
dehvery of this abstract truth, Bill did not see that the 
young man's face flushed slightly as he answered " No." 

" Then listen. It's seven years ago, Tommy, thet I was 
working one o' the Pioneer coaches over from Gold Hill. 
Ez I stood in front o' the stage-office, the sheriff o' the 
county comes to me, and he sez, ' Bill,' sez he, ' I've got a 
looney chap, as I'm in charge of, taking 'im down to the 
'sylum in Stockton. He'z quiet and peaceable, but the 
insides don't like to ride with him. Hev you enny objec- 
tion to give him a lift on the box beside you?' I sez, 
*No; put him up.' When I came to go and get up on 
that box beside him, that man. Tommy — that man sitting 
there, quiet and peaceable, was — Johnson ! 

" He didn't know me, my boy," Yuba Bill continued, 
rising and putting his hands on Tommy's shoulders, — " he 
didn't know me. He didn't know nothing about you, nor 
Angel's, nor the quicksilver lode, nor even his own name. 
He said his name was Skaggs, but I knowed it was Johnson. 
Thar was times, Tommy, you might have knocked me off 
that box with a feather ; thar was times when if the twenty- 
seven passengers o' that stage hed found theirselves 
swimming in the American River five hundred feet below 
the road, I never could have explained it satisfactorily to 
the company, — never. 

" The sheriff said," Bill continued hastily, as if to pre- 
clude any interruption from the young man, — "the sheriff 
said he had been brought into Murphy's Camp three years 
before, dripping with water, and sufferin' from perkussion 
of the brain, and had been cared for generally by the boys 
'round. When I told the sheriff I knowed 'im, I got him 
to leave him in my care; and I took him to 'Frisco, Tommy, 
to 'Frisco, and I put him in charge o' the best doctors 
there, and paid his board myself. There was nothin' he 



Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 5 1 

didn't have ez he wanted. Don't look that way, my dear 
boy, for God's sake, don't ! " 

" O Bill ! " said Islington, rising and staggering to the 
window, "why did you keep this from me?" 

"Why?" said Bill, turning on him savagely, — "why? 
because I warn't a fool. Thar was you, winnin' your way 
in college ; thar was you, risin' in the world, and of some 
account to it. Yer was an old bummer, ez good ez dead to 
it — a man ez oughter been dead afore ! a man ez never 
denied it ! But you alius liked him better nor me," said 
Bill bitterly. 

"Forgive me, Bill," said the young man, seizing both his 
hands. " I know you did it for the best ; but go on." 

" Thar ain't much more to tell, nor much use to tell it, 
as I can see," said Bill moodily. " He never could be 
cured, the doctors said, for he had what they called mono- 
mania — was always talking about his wife and darter that 
somebody had stole away years ago, and plannin' revenge 
on that somebody. And six months ago he was missed. 
I tracked him to Carson, to Salt Lake City, to Omaha, to 
Chicago, to New York, — and here ! " 

" Here ! " echoed Islington. 

" Here ! And that's what brings me here to-day. 
Whethers he's crazy or well, whethers he's huntin' you or 
lookin' up that other man, you must get away from here. 
You mustn't see him. You and me. Tommy, will go away on 
a cruisa In three or four years hell be dead or missing, and 
then we'll come back. Come." And he rose to his feet. 

" Bill," said Islington, rising also, and taking the hand of 
his friend with the same quiet obstinacy that in the old 
days had endeared him to Bill, "wherever he is, here or 
elsewhere, sane or crazy, I shall seek and find him. Every 
dollar that I have shall be his, every dollar that I have spent 
shall be returned to him. I am young yet, thank God, and 



52 Mrs. Skaggs^s Husbands. 

can work ; and if there is a way out of this miserable busi- 
ness, I shall find it." 

"I knew," said Bill with a surliness that ill concealed 
his evident admiration of the calm figure before him — " I 
knew the partikler style of d — n fool that you was, and 
expected no better. Good-bye, then — God Almighty! 
who's that ? " ■ 

He was on his way to the open French window, but had 
started back, his face quite white and bloodless, and his 
eyes staring. Islington ran to the window and looked out 
A white skirt vanished around the corner of the veranda. 
When he returned. Bill had dropped into a chair. 

" It must have been Miss Masterman, I think ; but 
what's the matter ? " 

"Nothing," said Bill faintly; "have you got any whisky 
handy ? " 

Islington brought a decanter and, pouring out some 
spirits, handed the glass to Bill. Bill drained it, and then 
said, "Who is Miss Masterman?" 

"Mr. Masterman's daughter; that is, an adopted daughter, 
I believe." 

"Wot name?" 

"I really don't know," said Islington pettishly, more 
vexed than he cared to own at this questioning. 

Yuba Bill rose and walked to the window, closed it, 
walked back again to the door, glanced at Islington, hesi- 
tated, and then returned to his chair. 

" I didn't tell you I was married — did I ? " he said 
suddenly, looking up in Islington's face with an unsuccess- 
ful attempt at a reckless laugh. 

"No," said Islington, more pained at the manner than 
the words. 

" Fact," said Yuba Bill. " Three years ago it was, 
Tommy, — three years ago ! " 



Mrs. Skaggss Husbands, 53 

He looked so hard at Islington that, feeling he was 
expected to say something, he asked vaguely, "Who did 
you marry ? " 

"Thet's it!" said Yuba Bill; "I can't ezactly say; 
partikly, though, a she-devil ! generally, the wife of half a 
dozen other men." 

Accustomed, apparently, to have his conjugal infelicities 
a theme of mirth among men, and seeing no trace of amuse- 
ment on Islington's grave face, his dogged, reckless manner 
softened, and, drawing his chair closer to Islington, he went 
on: "It all began outer ^this: we was coming down Watson's 
grade one night pretty free, when the expressman turns to 
me and says, ' There's a row inside, and you'd better pull 
up ! ' I pulls up, and out hops, first a woman, and then 
two or three chaps swearing and cursin', and trying to drag 
some one arter them. Then it 'peared. Tommy, thet it 
was this w^oman's drunken husband they w^as going to put 
out for abusin' her and strikin' her in the coach ; and if it 
hadn't been for me, my boy, they'd have left that chap thar 
in the road. But I fixes matters up by putting her along- 
side o' me on the box, and we drove on. She was very 
white, Tommy — for the matter o' that, she was always one 
o' these very white women, that never got red in the face — 
but she never cried a whimper. Most wimin would have 
cried. It w^as queer, but she never cried. I thought so at 
the time. 

" She was very tall, with a lot o' light hair meandering 
down the back of her head, as long as a deerskin whiplash, 
and about the colour. She hed eyes thet'd bore you through 
at fifty yards, and pooty hands and feet. And when she 
kinder got out o' that stiff, narvous state she was in, and 
warmed up a little, and got chipper, by G — d, sir, she was 
handsome, — she was that ! " 

A httle flushed and embarrassed at his own enthusiasm, 



I 



54 Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands, 

he stopped, and then said carelessly, "They got off at 
Murphy's." 

" Well," said Islington. 

" Well, I used to see her often arter thet, and when she 
was alone she alius took the box-seat. She kinder confided 
her troubles to me, how her husband got drunk and abused 
her; and I didn't see much o' him, for he was away in 
'Frisco arter thet. , But it was all square, Tommy, — all 
square 'twixt me and her. 

" I got a going there a good deal, and then one day I 
sez to myself, ' Bill, this won't do,' and I got changed to 
another route. Did you ever know Jackson Filltree^ 
Tommy ? " said Bill, breaking off suddenly. 

"No." 

" Might have heerd of him, p'r'aps ? " 

"No," said Islington impatiently. 

"Jackson Filltree ran the express from White's out to 
Summit, 'cross the North Fork of the Yuba. One day he 
sez to me, ' Bill, that's a mighty bad ford at the North 
Fork.' I sez, ' I believe you, Jackson.' * It'll git me some 
day, Bill, sure,' sez he. I sez, ' Why don't you take the 
lower ford ? ' 'I don't know,' sez he, ' but I can't.' So 
ever after, when I met him, he sez, * That North Fork ain't 
got me yet.' One day I was in Sacramento, and up comes 
Filltree. He sez, ' I've sold out the express business on 
account of the North Fork, but it's bound to get me yet, 
Bill, sure ; ' and he laughs. Two weeks after they finds his 
body below the ford, whar he tried to cross, comin' down 
from the Summit way. Folks said it was foolishness : 
Tommy, I sez it was Fate ! The second day arter I was 
changed to the Placerville route, thet woman comes outer the 
hotel above the stage-office. Her husband, she said, was 
lying sick in Placerville ; that's what she said ; but it was 
Fate, Tommy, Fate. Three months afterward, her husband 



Mrs, Skaggs's Husbands. 55 

takes an overdose of morphine for delirium tremens, and 
dies. There's folks ez sez she gave it to him, but it's Fate. 
A year after that I married her, — Fate, Tommy, Fate ! 

" I lived with her jest three months," he went on, after 
a long breath, — " three months ! It ain't much time for a 
happy man. I've seen a good deal o' hard life in my day, 
but there was days in that three months longer than any day 
in my life, — days. Tommy, when it was a toss-up whether 
I should kill her or she me. But thar, I'm done. You 
are a young man. Tommy, and I ain't goin' to tell things 
thet, old as I am, three years ago I couldn't have believed." 

When at last, with his grim face turned toward the win- 
dow, he sat silently with his clenched hands on his knees 
before him, IsHngton asked where his wife was now. 

"Ask me no more, my boy, — no more. I've said my 
say." With a gesture as of throwing down a pair of reins 
before him, he rose, and walked to the window. 

'' You kin understand. Tommy, why a little trip around 
the world 'ud do me good. Ef you can't go with me, well 
and good. But go I must." 

" Not before luncheon, I hope," said a very sweet voice, 
as Blanche Masterman suddenly stood before them. 
" Father would never forgive me if in his absence I per- 
mitted one of Mr. Islington's friends to go in this way. You 
will stay, won't you ? Do ! And you will give me your 
arm now ; and when Mr. Islington has done staring, he will 
follow us into the dining-room and introduce you." 

"I have quite fallen in love with your friend," said Miss 
Blanche, as they stood in the drawing-room looking at the 
figure of Bill, strolling, with his short pipe in his mouth, 
through the distant shrubbery. " He asks very queer ques- 
tions, though. He wanted to know my mother's maiden 
name." 



56 Mrs. Skaggs's Hiis bands. 

*'He is an honest fellow," said Islington gravely. 

"You are very much subdued. You don't thank me, I 
daresay, for keeping you and your friend here ; but you 
couldn't go, you know, until father returned. " 

Islington smiled, but not very gaily. 

" And then I think it much better for us to part here 
under these frescoes, don't you ? Good-bye." 

She extended her long, sUm hand. 

" Out in the sunlight there, when my eyes were red, you 
were very anxious to look at me," she added in a dangerous 
voice. 

Islington raised his sad eyes to hers. Something glitter- 
ing upon her own sweet lashes trembled and fell. 

"Blanche!" 

She was rosy enough now, and would have withdrawn her 
hand, but Ishngton detained it. She was not quite certain 
but that her waist was also in jeopardy. Yet she could 
not help saying, " Are you sure that there isn't anything 
in the way of a young woman that would keep you ? " 

" Blanche ! " said Islington in reproachful horror. 

" If gentlemen will roar out their secrets before an open 
window, with a young woman lying on a sofa on the veranda, 
reading a stupid French novel, they must not be surprised ^ 
if she gives more attention to them than her book." ■ 

" Then you know all, Blanche ? " 

" I know," said Blanche, "let's see — I know the partikler 
style of — ahem ! — fool you was, and expected no better. 
Good-bye." And, gliding like a lovely and innocent milk 
snake out of his grasp, she slipped away. 

To the pleasant ripple of waves, the sound of music and 
light voices, the yellow midsummer moon again rose over 
Greyport. It looked upon formless masses of rock and 
shrubbery, wide spaces of lawn and beach, and a shimmer- 



Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands. 57 

irig expanse of water. It singled out particular objects, — a 
white sail in shore, a crystal globe upon the lawn, and 
flashed upon something held between the teeth of a crouch- 
ing figure scaling the low wall of Cliffwood Lodge. Then, 
as a man and woman passed out from under the shadows of 
the foliage into the open moonlight of the garden path, the 
figure leaped from the wall, and stood erect and waiting in 
the shadow. 

It was the figure of an old man, with rolling eyes, his 
trembling hand grasping a long, keen knife, — a figure more 
pitiable than pitiless, more pathetic than terrible. But the 
next moment the knife was stricken from his hand, and he 
struggled in the firm grasp of another figure that apparently 
sprang from the wall beside him. 

" D — n you, Masterman ! " cried the old man hoarsely ; 
"give me fair play, and I'll kill you yet !" 

"Which my name is Yuba Bill," said Bill quietly, "and 
it's time this d — n fooling was stopped." 

The old man glared in Bill's face savagely. "I know 
you. You're one of Masterman's friends, — d — n you, — let 
me go till I cut his heart out, — let me go ! Where is my 
Mary ? — where is my wife ? — there she is ! there ! — there ! — 
there ! Mary ! " He would have screamed, but Bill placed 
his powerful hand upon his mouth as he turned in the 
direction of the old man's glance. Distinct in the moon- 
light the figures of Islington and Blanche, arm-in-arm, stood 
out upon the garden path. 

" Give me my wife ! " muttered the old man hoarsely 
between Bill's fingers. " Where is she ? " 

A sudden fury pass;;^! over Yuba Bill's face. " Where is 
your wife ? " he echoed, pressing the old man back against 
the garden wall, "and holding him there as in a vice. 
"Where is your wife?" he repeated, thrusting his grim 
sardonic jaw and savage eyes into the old man's frightened 



58 Mrs. Skaggs^s Husbands. 

face. " Where is Jack Adam's wife ? Where is my wife ? 
Where is the she-devil that drove one man mad, that sent 
another to hell by his own hand, that eternally broke and 
ruined me ? Where ! Where ! Do you ask where ? In 
jail in Sacramento, — in jail, do you hear? — in jail for 
murder, Johnson, — murder ! " 

The old man gasped, stiffened, and then, relaxing, suddenly 
slipped, a mere inanimate mass, at Yuba Bill's feet. With 
a sudden revulsion of feeling, Yuba Bill dropped at his side, 
and, lifting him tenderly in his arms, whispered, " Look up, 
old man, Johnson ! look up, for God's sake ! — it's me, — 
Yuba Bill ! and yonder is your daughter, and — Tommy — 
don't you know — Tommy, little Tommy Islington?" 

Johnson's eyes slowly opened. He whispered, "Tommy! 
yes, Tommy ! Sit by me, Tommy. But don't sit so near 
the bank. Don't you see how the river is rising and 
beckoning to me — hissing, and boilin' over the rocks? 
It's gittin' higher ! — hold me. Tommy, — hold me, and don't 
let me go yet. We'll live to cut his heart out. Tommy, — 
we'll live — we'll " 

His head sank, and the rushing river, invisible to all eyes 
save his, leaped toward him out of the darkness, and bore 
him away, no longer to the darkness, but through it to the 
distant, peaceful, shining sea. 



( 59 ) 



an OEpisoDe of jTiUtiletotom 

In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. 
She had a quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a 
dazzling complexion, and a certain languid grace which 
passed easily for gentlewomanliness. She always dressed 
becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted as the latest 
fashion. She had only two blemishes : one of her velvety 
eyes, when examined closely, had a slight cast, and her left 
cheek bore a small scar left by a single drop of vitriol — 
happily the only drop of an entire phial thrown upon her 
by one of her own jealous sex that reached the pretty face 
it was intended to mar. But when the observer had studied 
the eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was generally 
incapacitated for criticism, and even the scar on her cheek 
was thought by some to add piquancy to her smile. The 
youthful editor of the Fiddletown "Avalanche" had said 
privately that it was " an exaggerated dimple." Colonel 
Starbottle was instantly '' reminded of the beautifying 
patches of the days of Queen Anne, but more particularly, 
sir, of the blankest beautiful women, that, blank you, you 
ever laid your two blank eyes upon. A Creole woman, sir, in 
New Orleans. And this woman had a scar — a line extend- 
ing, blank me, from her eye to her blank chin. And this 
woman, sir, thrilled you, sir, maddened you, sir, absolutely 
sent your blank soul to perdition with her blank fascination. 
And one day I said to her, ' Celeste, how in blank did you 



6o An Episode of Fiddletozvn. 

come by that beautiful scar, blank you?' And she said to 
me, ' Star, .there isn't another white man that I'd confide 
in but you, but I made that scar myself, purposely, I did, 
blank me." These were her very words, sir, and perhaps 
you think it a blank lie, sir, but I'll put up any blank sum 
you can name and prove it, blank me." 

Indeed, most of the male population of Fiddletown were 
or had been in love with her. Of this number about one- 
half believed that their love was returned, with the excep- 
tion, possibly, of her own husband. He alone had been 
known to express scepticism. 

The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this infelicitous 
distinction was Tretherick. He had been divorced from 
an excellent wife to marry this Fiddletown enchantress. ' 
She also had been divorced, but it was hinted that some 
previous experiences of hers in that legal formality had made 
it perhaps less novel and probably less sacrificial. I would 
not have it inferred from this that she was deficient in 
sentiment or devoid of its highest moral expression. Her 
intimate friend had written (on the occasion of her second 
divorce), "The cold world does not understand Clara yet," 
and Colonel Starbottle had remarked, blankly, that with the 
exception of a single woman inOpelousas Parish, Louisiana, 
she had more soul than the whole caboodle of them put 
together. Few indeed could read those lines entitled 
" Infelissimus," commencing, " Why waves no cypress o'er 
this brow," originally pubhshed in the "Avalanche" over 
the signature of "The Lady Clare," without feeling the tear 
of sensibility tremble on his eyelids, or the glow of virtuous 
indignation mantle his cheek at the low brutality and piti- 
able jocularity of the " Dutch Flat Intelligencer," which the 
next week had suggested the exotic character of the cypress 
and its entire absence from Fiddletown as a reasonable 
answer to the query. 



A71 Episode of Fiddletown. 6i 

Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her feelings in 
a metrical manner, and deliver them to the cold world 
through the medium of the newspapers, that first attracted 
the attention of Tretherick. Several poems descriptive of 
the effects of California scenery upon a too sensitive soul, 
and of the vague yearnings for the infinite which an en- 
forced study of the heartlessness of California society pro- 
duced in the poetic breast, impressed Mr. Tretherick, who 
was then driving a six-mule freight Vv-aggon between Knight's 
Ferry and Stockton, to seek out the unknown poetess. 
Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly conscious of a certain 
hidden sentiment in his own nature, and it is possible that 
some reflections on the vanity of his pursuit — he supplied 
several mining camps with whisky and tobacco — in conjunc- 
tion with the dreariness of the dusty plain on which he 
habitually drove, may have touched some chord in sym- 
pathy with this sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief 
courtship — as brief as was consistent with some previous 
legal formalities — they were married, and Mr. Tretherick 
brought his blushing bride to Fiddletown, or " Fideletown," 
as Mrs. T. preferred to call it in her poems. 

The union was not a felicitous one. It was not long 
before Mr. Tretherick discovered that the sentiment he had 
fostered while freighting between Stockton and Knight's 
Ferry was different from that which his wife had evolved 
from the contemplation of CaUfornia scenery and her own 
soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to 
beat her, and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was 
impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same 
premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. T. 
to contribute regularly to the columns of the "Avalanche." It 
was at this time that Colonel Starbottle discovered a simila- 
rity in Mrs. T.'s verse to the genius of Sappho, and pointed 
it out to the citizens of Fiddletown in a two-columned 



62 An Episode of Ficidletown, 

criticism, signed " A. S.," also published in the " Avalanche " 
and supported by extensive quotation. As the " Avalanche " 
did not possess a font of Greek type, the editor was obliged 
to reproduce the Leucadian numbers in the ordinary Roman 
letter, to the intense disgust of Colonel Starbottle, and the 
vast delight of Fiddletown, who saw fit to accept the text as 
an excellent imitation of Choctaw — a language with which the 
Colonel, as a whilom resident of the Indian territories, was 
supposed to be familiar. Indeed, the next week's " Intelli- 
gencer " contained some vile doggerel, supposed to be an 
answer to Mrs. T.'s poem, ostensibly written by the wife of 
a Digger Indian chief, accompanied by a glowing eulogium 
signed " A. S. S." 

The result of this jocularity was briefly given in a later 
copy of the " Avalanche." *' An unfortunate rencontre took 
place on Monday last between the Hon. Jackson Flash, of 
the ' Dutch Flat Intelligencer,' and the well-known Colonel 
Starbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka Saloon. Two 
shots were fired by the parties without injury to either, al- 
though it is said that a passing Chinaman received fifteen 
buckshot in the calves of his legs from the Colonel's double- 
barrelled shotgun which were not intended for him. John 
will learn to keep out of the way of Melican man's firearms 
hereafter. The cause of the affray is not known, although 
it is hinted that there is a lady in the case. The rumour 
that points to a well-known and beautiful poetess whose 
lucubrations have often graced our columns, seems to gain 
credence from those that are posted." 

Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Tretherick under 
these trying circumstances was fully appreciated in the 
gulches. "The old man's head is level," said one long- 
booted philosopher. "Ef the Colonel kills Flash, Mrs. 
Tretherick is avenged ; if Flash drops the Colonel, Trethe- 
rick is all right. Either way he's got a sure thing." During 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 63 

this delicate condition of affairs Mrs. Tretherick one day 
left her husband's home and took refuge at the Fiddletown 
Hotel, with only the clothes she had on her back. Here 
she stayed for several weeks, during which period it is only 
justice to say that she bore herself with the strictest pro- 
priety. 

It was a clear morning in early spring that Mrs. Tretherick, 
unattended, left the hotel and walked down the narrow 
street toward the fringe of dark pines which indicated the 
extreme limits of Fiddletown. The few loungers at that 
early hour were preoccupied with the departure of the 
Wingdam coach at the other extremity of the street, and 
Mrs. Tretherick reached the suburbs of the settlement with- 
out discomposing observation. Here she took a cross street 
or road running at right angles with the main thoroughfare 
of Fiddletown, and passing through a belt of woodland. It 
was evidently the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of the 
town ; the dwellings were few, ambitious, and uninterrupted 
by shops. And here she was joined by Colonel Starbottle. 

The gallant Colonel, notwithstanding that he bore the 
swelling port which usually distinguished him — that his coat 
was tightly buttoned and his boots tightly fitting, and that 
his cane, hooked over his arm, swung jauntily — was not 
entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however, vouchsafed 
him a gracious smile and a glance of her dangerous eyes, 
and the Colonel, with an embarrassed cough and a slight 
strut, took his place at her side. 

"The coast is clear," said the Colonel, "and Tretherick 
is over at Dutch Flat on a spree \ there is no one in the 
house but a Chinaman, and you need fear no trouble from 
him. /," he continued, with a slight inflation of the chest 
that imperilled the security of his button, — " I will see that 
you are protected in the removal of your property." 

" Fm sure it's very kind of you, and so disinterested," 



I 



V 

64 An Episode of Fiddletown. 

simpered the lady as they walked along. " It's so pleasant 
to meet some one who has soul — some one to sympathise 
with in a community so hardened and heartless as this.'' 
And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but not until they 
had wrought their perfect and accepted work upon her 
companion. 

"Yes, certainly, of course," said the Colonel, glancing 
nervously up and down the street; "yes, certainly." Per- 
ceiving, however, that there was no one in sight or hearing, 
he proceeded at once to inform Mrs. Tretherick that the 
great trouble of his life, in fact, had been the possession of 
too much soul. That many women — as a gentleman she 
would excuse him, of course, from mentioning names — but 
many beautiful women had often sought his society, but, 
being deficient, madam, absolutely deficient in this quality, 
he could not reciprocate. But when two natures thoroughly 
in sympathy — despising alike the sordid trammels of a low 
and vulgar community and the conventional restraints of a 
hypocritical society — when two souls in perfect accord met 
and mingled in poetical union, thfj^ — but here the Colonel's 
speech, which had been remarkable for a certain whisky- 
and-watery fluency, grew husky, almost inaudible, and 
decidedly incoherent. Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have 
heard something like it before, and was enabled to fill the 
hiatus. Nevertheless, the cheek that was on the side of the 
Colonel was quite virginal and bashfully conscious until they 
reached their destination. 

It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and warm with 
paint, very pleasantly relieved against a platoon of pines, 
some of whose foremost files had been displaced to give 
freedom to the fenced enclosure in which it sat. In the 
vivid sunlight and perfect silence it had a new, uninhabited 
look, as if the carpenters and painters had just left it. At 
the farther end of the lot a Chinaman was stolidly digging, 



An Episode of Fiddletown, 65 

but there was no other sign of occupancy. "The coast," 
as the Colonel had said, was indeed "clear." Mrs. 
Tretherick paused at the gate. The Colonel would have 
entered with her, but was stopped by a gesture. " Come 
for me in a couple of hours, and I shall have everything 
packed," she said, as she smiled and extended her hand. 
The Colonel seized and pressed it with great fervour. Per- 
haps the pressure was slightly returned, for the gallant 
Colonel was impelled to inflate his chest and trip away as 
smartly as his stubby-toed, high-heeled boots would permit. 

I When he had gone, Mrs. Tretherick opened the door, 
listened a moment in the deserted hall, and then ran 

\ quickly upstairs to what had been her bedroom. 

Everything there was unchanged as on the night she 
left it. On the dressing-table stood her bandbox, as she 

I remembered to have left it when she took out her bonnet 
On the mantel lay the other glove she had forgotten in 
her flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau were 
half open — she had forgotten to shut them — and on its 
marble top lay her shawl ^n and a soiled cuff. What other 
recollections came upon her I know not, but she suddenly 
grew quite white, shivered, and listened with a beating 
heart and her hand upon the door. Then she stepped to 
the mirror, and half fearfully, half curiously, parted with her 
fingers the braids of her blonde hair above her little pink 
ear, until she came upon an ugly, half-healed scar. She 
gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and down to get 
a better light upon it, until the slight cast in her velvety 
eyes became very strongly marked indeed. Then she 
turned away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and 
ran to the closet where hung her precious dresses. These 
she inspected nervously, and missing suddenly a favourite 
black silk from its accustomed peg for a moment, thought 
she should have fainted. But discovering it the next 

VOL. HI. E 



66 An Episode of Fiddletown. 

instant, lying upon a trunk where she had thrown it, a 
feeling of thankfulness to a Superior Being who protects 
the friendless for the first time sincerely thrilled her. 
Then, albeit she was hurried for time, she could not resist 
trying the effect of a certain lavender neck-ribbon upon the 
dress she was then wearing before the mirror. And then 
suddenly she became aware of a child's voice close beside 
her and she stopped. And then the child's voice repeated, 
** Is it mamma?" 

. Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Standing in the 
doorway was a little girl of six or seven. Her dress had 
been originally fine, but was torn and dirty, and her hair, 
which was a very violent red, was tumbled serio-comically 
about her forehead. For all this she was a picturesque 
little thing, even through whose childish timidity there was 
a certain self-sustained air which is apt to come upon 
children who are left much to themselves. She was holding 
under her arm a rag doll, apparently of her own workman- 
ship and nearly as large as herself — a doll with a cylindrical 
head and features roughly indicated with charcoal. A long 
shawl, evidently belonging to a grown person, dropped from 
her shoulders and swept the floor. 

The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Tretherick's delight. 
Perhaps she had but a small sense of humour. Certainly, 
when the child, still standing in the doorway, again asked, 
** Is it mamma ? " she answered sharply, " No, it isn't," and 
turned a severe look upon the intruder. 

The child retreated a step, and then, gaining courage 
with the distance, said, in deliciously imperfect speech — 
" Dow 'way, then ; why don't you dow away ? " 
But Mrs. Tretherick was eyeing the shawl. Suddenly she 
whipped it off the child's shoulders and said angrily — 
" How dared you take my things, you bad child ? " 
" Is it yours ? Then you are my mamma ! ain't you ? 



An Episode of Fiddle town. 67 

You are mamma ! " she continued gleefully, and before 
Mrs. Tretherick could avoid her she had dropped her doll, 
and, catching the woman's skirts with both hands, was 
dancing up and down before her. 

*' What's your name, child?" said Mrs. Tretherick 
coldly, removing the small and not very white hands from 
her garments. 

*' Tarry." 

" Tarry ? " 

"Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline." 

" Caroline ? " 

" Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick." 

" Whose child are you ? " demanded Mrs. Tretherick still 
more coldly, to keep down a rising fear. 

^" Why, yours," said the little creature with a laugh. " I'm 
your little durl. You're my mamma — my new mamma — 
don't you know my ole mamma's dorn away, never to turn 
back any more. I don't Hve wid my ole mamma now. I 
live wid you and papa." 

*' How long have you been here ? " asked Mrs. Tretherick 
snappishly. 

" I think it's free days," said Carry reflectively. 

*' You think ! don't you know?" sneered Mrs. Tretherick. 
** Then where did you come from ? " 

Carry's lip began to work under this sharp cross-exami- 
nation. With a great effort and a small gulp she got the 
better of it, and answered — 

"Papa — papa fetched me — from Miss Simmons — from 
Sacramento, last week." 

" Last week ! you said three days just now," returned 
Mrs. Tretherick with severe deliberation. 

" I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly adrift in sheer 
helplessness and confusion. 

" Do you know what you are talking about ? " demanded 



k 



68 An Episode of Fiddle town, 

Mrs. T. shrilly, restraining an impulse to shake the little 
figure before her and precipitate the truth by specific 
gravity. 

But the flaming red head here suddenly disappeared in 
the folds of Mrs. Tretherick's dress, as if it were trying to 
extinguish itself for ever. 

"There now, stop that sniffling," said Mrs. Tretherick, 
extricating her dress from the moist embraces of the child, 
and feeling exceedingly uncomfortable. " Wipe your face 
now and run away and don't bother. Stop," she continued, 
as Carry moved away, "where's your papa.? " 

" He's dorn away too. He's sick. He's been dorn "— 
she hesitated — "two— free— days." 

"Who takes care of you, child?" said Mrs. T., eyeing 
her curiously. 

" John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth ; John tooks 
and makes the beds." 

"Well, now, run away and behave yourself, and don't 
bother me any more," said Mrs. Tretherick, remembering 
aie object of her visit. " Stop, where are you going ? " she 
added, as the child began to ascend the stairs, dragging 
the long doll after her by one helpless leg. 

" Doin' upstairs to play and be dood, and not bother 
mamma." 

"I ain't your mamma," shouted Mrs. Tretherick, and 
then she swiftly re-entered her bedroom and slammed the 
door. 

Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk from the closet, 
and set to work with querulous and fretful haste to paclk 
her wardrobe. She tore her best dress in taking it from 
the hook on which it hung ; she scratched her soft hands 
twice with an ambushed pin. All the while she kept up 
an mdignant commentary on the events of the past few 
moments. She said to herself she saw it all. Tretherick 



k 



\ 



A n Episode of Fiddletozvn. 69 

had sent for this child of his first wife — this child of whose 
existence he had never seemed to care — just to insult her 
— to fill her place. Doubtless the first wife herself would 
follow soon, or perhaps there would be a third. Red hair 
— not auburn, but red — of course the child — this Caroline 
— looked like its mother, and if so she was anything but 
pretty. Or the whole thing had 'been prepared — this red- 
haired child — the image of its mother — had been kept at 
a convenient distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for 
when needed. She remembered his occasional visits there 
— on business, as he said. Perhaps the mother already 
was there — but no — she had gone East. Nevertheless 
Mrs. Trethe*rick, in her then state of mind, preferred to 
dwell upon the fact that she might be there. She was 
dimly conscious also of a certain satisfaction in exaggerating 
her feelings. Surely no woman had ever been so shame- 
fully abused. In fancy she sketched a picture of herself 
sitting alone and deserted, at sunset, among the fallen 
columns of a ruined temple, in a melancholy yet graceful 
attitude, while her husband drove rapidly away in a luxu^ 
rious coach and four, with a red-haired woman at his side. 
Sitting upon the trunk she had just packed, she partly 
composed a lugubrious poem, describing her sufferings as, 
wandering alone and poorly clad, she came upon her husband 
and " another " flaunting in silks and diamonds. She pic- 
tured herself dying of consumption, brought on by sorrow — 
a beautiful wreck, yet still fascinating, gazed upon adoringly 
by the editor of the " Avalanche " and Colonel Starbottle. 
And- where was Colonel Starbottle all this while? why 
didn't h^ come ? He at least understood her. He — she 
laughed the reckless, light laugh of a few moments before, 
and then her face suddenly grew grave, as it had not a few 
moments before. 

What was that little red-haired imp doing all this time ? 



f 



70 An Episode of Fiddletown. 

Why was she so quiet ? She opened the door noiselessly 
and listened. She fancied that she heard, above the multi- 
tudinous small noises and creakings and warpings of the 
vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the floor above. 
This, as she remembered, was only an open attic that had 
been used as a store-room. With a half-guilty conscious- 
ness she crept softly upstairs, and, pushing the door partly 
open, looked within. 

Athwart the long, low-studded attic a slant sunbeam 
from a single small window lay, filled with dancing motes 
and only half illuminating the barren, dreary apartment. 
In the ray of this sunbeam she saw the child's glowing hair, 
as if crowned by a red aureole, as she sat upon the floor 
with her exaggerated doll between her knees. She appeared 
to be talking to it, and it was not long before Mrs. 
Tretherick observed that she was rehearsing the interview 
of a half-hour before. She catechised the doll severely, 
cross-examining it in regard to the duration of its stay there, 
and generally on the measure of time. The imitation of 
Mrs. T.'s manner was exceedingly successful, and the con- 
versation almost a literal reproduction, with a single excep- 
tion. After she had informed the doll that she was not her 
mother, at the close of the interview she added pathetically, 
"That if she was dood — very dood — she might be her 
mamma and love her very much." 

I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick was deficient 
in a sense of humour. Perhaps it was for this reason that 
this whole scene affected her most unpleasantly, and the 
conclusion sent the blood tingling to her cheek. There 
was something, too, inconceivably lonely in the situation ; 
the unfurnished vacant room, the half light, the monstrous 
doll, whose very size seemed to give a pathetic significance 
to its speechlessness, the smallness of the one animate self- 
centred figure — all these touched more or less deeply the 



All Episode of Fiddletown. 71 

half-poetic sensibilities of the woman. She could not help 
utilising the impression as she stood there, and thought 
what a fine poem might be constructed from this material, 
if the room were a little darker, the child lonelier — say, sit- 
ting beside a dead mother's bier and the wind waiHng in 
the turrets. And then she suddenly heard footsteps at the 
door below, and recognised the tread of the Colonel's cane. 

She flew swiftly down the stairs and encountered the 
Colonel in the hall. Here she poured into his astonished 
ear a voluble and exaggerated statement of her discovery 
and indignant recital of her wrongs. " Don't tell me the 
whole thing wasn't arranged beforehand ; for I know it 
was ! " she almost screamed. " And think," she added, 
" of the heartlessness of the wretch — leaving his own child 
alone here in that way." 

*' It's a blank shame ! " stammered the Colonel, without 
the least idea of what he was talking about. In fact, utterly 
unable as he was to comprehend a reason for the woman's 
excitement with his estimate of her character, I fear he 
showed it more plainly than he intended. He stammered, 
expanded his chest, looked stern, gallant, tender, but all 
unintelligently. Mrs. Tretherick for an instant experienced 
a sickening doubt of the existence of natures in perfect 
affinity. 

" It's of no use," said Mrs. Tretherick with sudden 
vehemence, in answer to some inaudible remark of the 
Colonel's, and withdrawing her hand from the fervent grasp 
of that ardent and sympathetic man. " It's of no use ; my 
mind is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon as 
you like, but / shall stay here and confront that man with 
the proof of his vileness. I will put him face to face with 
his infamy." 

I do not know whether Colonel Starbottle thoroughly 
appreciated the convincing proof of Tretherick's unfaithful- 



72 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

ness and malignity afforded by the damning evidence of the 
existence of Tretherick's own child in his own house. He 
was dimly aware, however, of some unforeseen obstacle to 
the perfect expression of the infinite longing of his own 
sentimental nature. But before he could say anything, 
Carry appeared on the landing above them, looking timidly 
and yet half-critically at the pair. 

"That's her," said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly. In her 
deepest emotions, either in verse or prose, she rose above 
a consideration of grammatical construction. 

"Ah!" said the Colonel, with a sudden assumption of 
parental affection and jocularity that was glaringly unreal 
and affected. " Ah ! pretty little girl, pretty little girl ! 
how do you do? how are you? you find yourself pretty 
well, do you, pretty little girl?" The Colonel's impulse 
also was to expand his chest and swing his cane, until it 
occurred to him that this action might be ineffective with 
a child of six or seven. Carry, however, took no immediate 
notice of this advance, but further discomposed the chival- 
rous Colonel by running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick, and 
hiding herself, as if for protection, in the folds of her gown. 
Nevertheless, the Colonel was not vanquished. Falling 
back into an attitude of respectful admiration, he pointed 
out a marvellous resemblance to the " Madonna and Child." 
Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but did not dislodge Carry as 
before. There was an awkward pause for a moment, and 
then Mrs. Tretherick, motioning significantly to the child, 
said in a whisper, " Go, now. Don't come here again, 
but meet me to-night at the hotel." She extended her 
hand ; the Colonel bent over it gallantl}^, and raising his 
hat, the next moment was gone. 

"Do you think," said Mrs. Tretherick, with an embar- 
rassed voice and a prodigious blush, looking down and 
addressing the fiery curls just visible in the folds of her 



An Episode of Fiddletown, 73 

dress, — " do you think you will be ' dood ' if I let you stay 
in here and sit with me ? " 

"And let me call you mamma?" queried Carry, looking up. 

" And let you call me mamma ! " assented Mrs. Tretherick 
with an embarrassed laugh. 

" Yeth," said Carry promptly. 

They entered the bedroom together. Carry's eye instantly 
caught sight of the trunk. 

"Are you dowin' away adain, mamma?" she said with 
a quick, nervous look, and a clutch at the woman's 
dress. 

" No-o," said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out of the window. 

" Only playing you're dowin' away," suggested Carry with 
a laugh. " Let me play too." 

Mrs. T. assented. Carry flew into the next room, and 
presently reappeared, dragging a small trunk, into which 
she gravely proceeded to pack her clothes. Mrs. T. 
noticed that they were not many. A question or two 
regarding them brought out some further replies from the 
child, and before many minutes had elapsed Mrs. Tre- 
therick was in possession of all her earlier history. But 
to do this Mrs. Tretherick had been obliged to take 
Carry upon her lap, pending the most confidential dis- 
closures. They sat thus a long time after Mrs. Tretherick 
had apparently ceased to be interested in Carry's dis- 
closures, and, when lost in thought, she allowed the child 
to rattle on unheeded, and ran her fingers through the 
scarlet curls. 

" You don't hold me right, mamma," said Carry at last, 
after one or two uneasy shiftings of position. 

" How should I hold you ? " asked Mrs. Tretherick with 
a half-amused, half-embarrassed laugh. 

"This way," said Carry, curling up into position with one 
arm around Mrs. Tretherick's neck and her cheek resting 



74 ^^ Episode of Fiddletown, 

on her bosom ; "this way— there !" After a little prepara- 
tory nesthng, not unlike some small animal, she closed her 
eyes and went to sleep. 

For a few moments the woman sat silent, scarcely daring 
to breathe, in that artificial attitude. And then, whether 
from some occult sympathy in the touch, or God best knows 
what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her. She began by 
remembering an old pain that she had forgotten, an old 
horror that she had resolutely put away all these years. 
She recalled days of sickness and distrust, days of an over- 
shadowing fear, days of preparation for something that was 
to be prevented— that was prevented, with mortal agony 
and fear. She thought of a life that might have been— 
she dared not say had been — and wondered ! It was six 
years ago ; if it had lived it would have been as old as 
Carry. The arms which were folded loosely around the 
sleeping child began to tremble and tighten their clasp. 
And then the deep potential impulse came, and with a half- 
sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out and drew the body 
of the sleeping child down, down into her breast, down 
again and again as if she would hide it in the grave dug 
there years before. And the gust that shook her passed, 
and then, ah me ! the rain. 

A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, and she 
moved uneasily in her sleep. But the woman soothed 
her again — it was so easy to do it now — and they sat there 
quiet and undisturbed — so quiet that they might have 
seemed incorporate of the lonely silent house, the slowly 
declining sunbeams, and the general air of desertion and 
abandonment, yet a desertion that had in it nothing of age, 
decay, or despair. 

Colonel Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown Hotel all 
that night in vain. And the next morning, when Mr 



An Episode of Fiddletow7i. 75 

Tretherick returned to his husks, he found the house 
vacant and untenanted except by motes and sunbeams. 

When it was fairly known that Mrs. Tretherick had run 
away, taking Mr. Tretherick's own child with her, there was 
some excitement and much diversity of opinion in Fiddle- 
tow^n. The "Dutch Flat Intelligencer" openly alluded to 
the " forcible abduction " of the child with the same 
freedom and, it is to be feared, the same prejudice with 
which it had criticised the abductor's poetry. All of Mrs. 
Tretherick's own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite 
sex whose distinctive quality was not, however, very strongly 
indicated, fully coincided in the views of the " Intelligencer." 
The majority, however, evaded the moral issue ; that Mrs. 
Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddletown from 
her dainty slippers was enough for them to know. They 
mourned the loss of the fair abductor more than her 
offence. They promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured 
husband and disconsolate father, and even went so far as 
to openly cast discredit in the sincerity of his grief They 
reserved an ironical condolence for Colonel Starbottle, 
overbearing that excellent man with untimely and demon- 
strative sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other localities 
not generally deemed favourable to the display of sentiment. 
" She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one sympa- 
thiser with a fine affectation of gloomy concern and great 
readiness of illustration, " and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd 
get away some day and stampede that theer colt, but thet she 
should shake _y<?z/, Kernel, thet she should just shake you — 
is what gits me. And they do say thet you jist hung around 
thet hotel all night, and paytrolled them corriders and histed 
yourself up and down them stairs, and meandered in and 
out o' thet piazzy, and all for nothing ! " It was another 
generous and tenderly commiserating spirit that poured 
additional oil and \^ne on the Colonel's wounds. "The 



76 An Episode of Fiddle town. 

boys yer let on thet Mrs. Tretherick prevailed on ye to 
pack her trunk and a baby over from the house to the' age 
and fl- H *' '''P "' '''" ^° °'^ ^-"'^ '^^ tanked you 

looks fnd'T 'Z ''°" ''^' ^"^ ''" '' I^"- he Hked your 
looks and 'ud employ you agin-and now you say it ain't 
so? Well-r„ tell the boys it ain't so, and I'm glL i me 
you, for stones da get round." 

Happily for Mrs. Tretherick's reputation, however, the 
Chmaman m Tretherick's employment, who was the only 
eyewuness of her flight, stated that she was unaccor^^ 
pan.ed except by the child. He further deposed tha obe^- 
ng her orders he had stopped the SacranLto coa h and 
cured a passage for herself and child to San Francisco 
It was true that Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal X 

the Pagans ab.hty to recognise the sacredness of the truth 
admmed h,s passionless, unprejudiced unconcern. But S 
would appear from an hitherto unrecorded passage of this 
veracious chromcle that herein they were mistaken 

It was about six months after the disappearanc^ of Mrs 
Tretherrck that Ah Fe, while working in Tretherick's l' 
was harled by two passing Chinamen. They were the 
ordinary mmmg coolies, equipped with long poles and 
baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An animated cL'r 
sat,on at once ensued between Ah Fe and his brother 
Mongohans-a conversation characterised by that usua 
sh„lWolu5.htyand apparent animosity which'was at once 
no ff\. "°" °' *' '"'*="'=^"' Caucasian who did 

It wT:f^ "'°"' °'"- '"=■'' ^' '^^^'' --^ *e feeling 
w twh,eh Mr. Tretherick on his veranda, and Colonel Star 
bottle who was passmg, regarded their heathenish jargon 
The gallant Colonel simply kicked them out of hi w° 
the irate Tretherick with an oath threw a stone at the group 
and dispersed them. But not before, one or two sgs of 



An Episode of Fiddletown. yy 

yellow rice paper marked with hieroglyphics were exchanged 
and a small parcel put into Ah Fa's hands. When Ah Fe 
opened this, in the dim solitude of his kitchen, he found a 
little girl's apron, freshly washed, ironed, and folded. On the 
corner of the hem were the initials "C. T." Ah Fe tucked 
it away in a corner of his blouse, and proceeded to wash 
his dishes in the sink with a smile of guileless satisfaction. 

Two days after this Ah Fe confronted his master. " Me 
no likee Fiddletown. Me belly sick. Me go now." Mr. 
Tretherick violently suggested a profane locality. Ah Fe 
gazed at him placidly and withdrew. 

Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he accidentally met 
Colonel Starbottle and dropped a few incoherent phrases 
which apparently interested that gentleman. When he con- 
cluded, the Colonel handed him a letter and a twenty-dollar 
gold piece. "If you bring me an answer I'll double that, Sabe, 
John ! " Ah Fe nodded. An interview equally accidental, 
with precisely the same result, took place between Ah Fe and 
another gentleman, whom I suspect to have been the youth- 
ful editor of the "Avalanche." Yet I regret to state that after 
proceeding some distance on his journey, Ah Fe calmly 
broke the seals of both letters, and after trying to read 
them upside down and sideways, finally divided them into 
accurate squares, and in this condition disposed of them to 
a brother Celestial whom he met on the road for a trifling 
gratuity. The agony of Colonel Starbottle on finding his wash- 
bill made out on the unwritten side of one of these squares, 
and delivered to him with his weekly clean clothes, and the 
subsequent discovery that the remaining portions of his 
letter were circulated by the same method from the Chinese 
laundry of one Fung Ti of Fiddletown, has been described 
to me as peculiarly affecting. Yet I am satisfied that a 
higher nature, rising above the levity induced by the mere 
contemplation of the insignificant details of this breach of 



78 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

trust, would find ample retributive justice in the difficulties 
that subsequently attended Ah Fe's pilgrimage. 

On the road to Sacramento he was twice playfully thrown 
from the top of the stage-coach by an intelligent but deeply 
intoxicated Caucasian, whose moral nature was shocked at 
riding with one addicted to opium smoking. At Hangtown 
he was beaten by a passing stranger, purely an act of 
Christian supererogation. At Dutch Flat he was robbed 
by well-known hands from unknown motives. At Sacra- 
mento he was arrested on suspicion of being something or 
other, and discharged with a severe reprimand — possibly for 
not being it, and so delaying the course of justice. At San 
Francisco he was freely stoned by children of the public 
schools, but by carefully avoiding these monuments of en- 
lightened progress, he at last reached in comparative safety 
the Chinese quarters, where his abuse was confined to the ' 
police and limited by the strong arm of the law. 

The next day he entered the wash-house of Chy Fook as 
an assistant, and on the following Friday was sent with a 
basket of clean clothes to Chy Fook's several clients. 

It was the usual foggy afternoon as he climbed the long 
wind-swept hill of California street, one of those bleak gray 
intervals that made the summer a misnomer to any but the 
liveliest San Franciscan fancy. There was no warmth or 
colour in earth or sky ; no light nor shade within or without, 
only one monotonous, universal neutral tint over everything. 
There was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets, there 
was a dreary vacant quiet in the gray houses. When Ah 
Fe reached the top of the hill the Mission ridge was already 
hidden, and the chill sea-breeze made him shiver. As he 
put down his basket to rest himself, it is possible that to his 
defective intelligence and heathen experience this " God's 
own climate," as it was called, seemed to possess but scant 
tenderness, softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 79 

Fe illogically confounded this season with his old perse- 
cutors, the school children, who, being released from 
studious confinement, at this hour were generally most 
aggressive. So he hastened on, and, turning a corner, at 
last stopped before a small house. 

It was the usual San Franciscan urban cottage. There 
was the little strip of cold green shrubbery before it ; the 
chilly bare veranda, and above this again the grim balcony 
on which no one sat. Ah Fe rang the bell; a servant 
appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly admitted 
him as if he were some necessary domestic animal. Ah 
Fe silently mounted the stairs, and, entering the open door 
of the front chamber, put down the basket and stood pas- 
sively on the threshold. 

A woman who was sitting in the cold gray light of the 
window, with a child in her lap, rose listlessly and came 
toward him. Ah Fe instantly recognised Mrs. Tretherick, 
but not a muscle of his immobile face changed, nor did 
his slant eyes lighten as he met her own placidly. She evi- 
dently did not recognise him as she began to count the 
clothes. But the child, curiously examining him, suddenly 
uttered a short glad cry — 

*' Why, it's John ! Mamma, it's our old John what we 
had in Fiddletown." 

For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electrically 
lightened. The child clapped her hands and caught at 
his blouse. Then he said shortly, " Me John — Ah Fe — 
allee same. Me know you. How do?" 

Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes nervously and looked 
hard at Ah Fe. Wanting the quick-witted instinct of affec- 
tion that sharpened Carry's perception, she even then could 
not distinguish him above his fellows. With a recollection 
of past pain and an obscure suspicion of impending danger, 
she asked him when he had left Fiddletown. 



8o An Episode of Fiddletown, 

" Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee Tlevelick. 
Likee San Flisco. Likee washee. Likee Tally." 

Ah Fe's laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick. She did not 
stop to consider how much an imperfect knowledge of 
English added to his curt directness arid sincerity. But she 
said, " Don't tell anybody you have seen me," and took out 
her pocket-book. 

Ah Fe, without looking, at it, saw that it was nearly 
empty. Ah Fe, without examining the apartment, saw that 
it was scantily furnished. Ah Fe, without removing his 
eyes from blank vacancy, saw that both Mrs. Tretherick 
and Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is my duty to state 
that Ah Fe's long fingers closed promptly and firmly over 
the half-dollar which Mrs. Tretherick extended to him. 

Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a series of 
extraordinary contortions. After a few moments he ex- 
tracted from apparently no particular place a child's apron, 
which he laid upon the basket with the remark — 

" One piecee washman flagittee." 

Then he began anew his fumblings and contortions. At 
last his efforts were rewarded by his producing, apparently 
from his right ear, a many-folded piece of tissue paper. 
Unwrapping this carefully, he at last disclosed two twenty- 
dollar gold pieces, which he handed to Mrs. Tretherick. 

" You leavee money top side of blulow, Fiddletown, me 
findee money. Me fetchee money to you. All lightee." 

" But I left no money on the top of the bureau, John," 
said Mrs. Tretherick earnestly. "There must be some 
mistake. It belongs to some other person. Take it back, 
John." 

Ah Fe's brows darkened. He drew away from Mrs. 
Tretherick's extended hand and began hastily to gather up 
his basket. 

" Me no takee back. No, no. Bimeby pleesman he 



A 71 Episode of Fiddletown. 8i 

catchee me! He say, 'God damn thief — catchee flowty 
dollar — come to jailee.' Me no'takee back. You leavee 
money top side blulow,' Fiddletown. Me fetchee money 
you. Me no take'0_'back." 

Mrs. Tretherick hesitated. In the confusion of her flight 
she 7mght have left the money in the manner he had said. 
In any event she had no right to jeopardise this honest 
Chinaman's safpty by refusing it. So she said, " Very well, 
John, I will keep it. But you must come again and see 
•me" — here Mrs. T. hesitated with a new and sudden 
revelation of the fact that any man could wish to see any 
other than herself, — "and, and — Carry !" 

Ah Fe's face lightened. He, even uttered a short ven- 
triloquistic laugh without moving his mouth. Then shoul- 
dering his basket he shut the door carefully, and sHd quietly 
downstairs. In the lower hall he, however, found an unex- 
pected difficulty in opening the front door, and after fum- 
bhng vainly at the lock for a moment, looked around for 
some help or instruction. But the Irish handmaid who 
had let him in was contemptuously oblivious of his needs 
and did not appear. 

There occurred a mysterious and painful incident which 
I shall simply record without attempting to explain. On 
the hall table a scarf, evidently the property of the servant 
before alluded to, was lying. As Ah Fe tried the lock with 
one hand, the other rested lightly on the table. Suddenly, 
and apparently of its own volition, the scarf began to creep 
slowly towards Ah Fe's hand. From Ah Fe's hand it began 
to creep up his sleeve, slowly and with an insinuating, 
snake-like motion, and then disappeared somewhere in the 
recesses of his blouse. Without betraying the least interest 
or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated his 
experiments upon the lock. A moment later the tablecloth 
of red damask, moved by apparently the same mysterious 

VOL. III. F 



82 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

impulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe's fingers, and 
sinuously disappeared by the same hidden channel. What 
further mystery might have followed I cannot say, for at 
this moment Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and 
was enabled to open the door coincident with the sound 
of footsteps upon the kitchen stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten 
his movements, but patiently shouldering his basket, closed 
the door carefully behind him again, and stepped forth 
into the thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth 
and sky. 

From her high casement window Mrs. Tretherick watched 
Ah Fe's figure until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In 
her present loneliness she felt a keen sense of gratitude 
towards him, and may have ascribed to the higher emotions 
and the consciousness of a good deed that certain expansive- 
ness of the chest and swelling of the bosom that was really 
due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under 
his blouse ; for Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. 
As the gray fog deepened into night she drew Carry closer 
towards her, and above the prattle of the child pursued a 
vein of sentimental and egotistic recollection at once bitter 
and dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked 
her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary 
interval between she was now wandering — a journey so 
piteous, wilful, thorny, and useless, that it was no wonder 
that at last Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of her 
voluble confidences to throw her small arms around the 
woman's neck and bid her not to cry. 

Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that should be 
ever dedicated to an exposition of unalterable moral principle 
to transcribe Mrs. Tretherick's own theory of this interval 
and episode, with its feeble palliations, its illogical deduc 
tions, its fond excuses, and weak apologies. It would seem, 
however, that her experience had been hard. Her slender 



An Episode of Fiddletown, Zt^ 

stock of money was soon exhausted. At Sacramento she 
found that the composition of verse, although appeahng to 
the highest emotion of the human heart, and compelling 
the editorial breast to the noblest commendation in the 
editorial pages, was singularly inadequate to defray the 
expenses of herself and Carry. Then she tried the stage, 
but failed signally. Possibly her conception of the passions 
was different from that which obtained with a Sacramento 
audience, but it was certain that her charming presence, so 
effective at short range, was not sufficiently pronounced 
for the footlights. She had admirers enough in the green- 
room, but awakened no abiding affection among the audi- 
ence. In this strait it occurred to her that she had a voice 
— a contralto of no very great compass or cultivation, but 
singularly sweet and touching, and she finally obtained 
position in a church choir. She held it for three months, 
greatly to her pecuniary advantage, and, it is said, much 
to the satisfaction of the gentlemen in the back pews who 
faced towards her during the singing of the last hymn. 

I remember her quite distinctly at this time. The light 
that slanted through the oriel of St. Dives' choir was wont 
to fall tenderly on her beautiful head with its stacked 
masses of deerskin-coloured hair, on the low black arches 
of her brows, and to deepen the pretty fringes that shaded 
her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very pleasant it was to watch 
the opening and shutting of that small straight mouth, with 
its quick revelation of little white teeth, and to see the 
foolish blood faintly deepen her satin cheek as you watched ; 
for Mrs. Tretherick was very sweetly conscious of admira- 
tion, and, like most pretty women, gathered herself under 
your eye like a racer under the spur. 

And then, of course, there came trouble. I have it from 
the soprano — a Httle lady who possessed even more than 
the usual unprejudiced judgment of her sex — that Mrs. 



^ 



84 An Episode of Fiddletown. 

Tretherick's conduct was simply shameful ; that her conceit 
was unbearable ; that if she considered the rest of the choir 
as slaves, she, the soprano, would like to know it ; that her 
conduct on Easter Sunday with the basso had attracted 
the attention of the whole congregation, and that she her- 
self had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up during the 
service ; that her, the soprano's, friends had objected to her 
singing in the choir with a person who had been on the 
stage, but she had waived this. Yet she had it from the 
best authority that Mrs. Tretherick had run away from her 
husband, and that this red-haired child who sometimes 
came in the choir was not her own. The tenor confided 
to me, behind the organ, that Mrs. Tretherick had a way 
of sustaining a note at the end of a line, in order that her 
voice might linger longer with the congregation — an act 
that could be attributed only to a defective moral nature; 
that as a man — he was a very popular dry-goods clerk on 
week-days, and sang a good deal from apparently behind 
his eyebrows on the Sabbath — that as a man, sir, he would 
put up with it no longer. The basso alone — a short German 
with a heavy voice, for which he seemed reluctantly respon- 
sible, and rather grieved at its possession — stood up for Mrs. 
Tretherick and averred that they were jealous of her because 
she was "bretty." The climax was at last reached in an 
open quarrel, wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue 
with such precision of statement and epithet that the 
soprano burst into hysterical tears, and had to be supported 
from the choir by her husband and the tenor. This act 
was marked intentionally to the congregation by the omis- 
sion of the usual soprano solo. Mrs. Tretherick went home 
flushed with triumph, but on reaching her room frantically 
told Carry that they were beggars henceforward ; that she 
— her mother — had just taken the very bread out of her 
darling's mouth, and ended by bursting into a flood of 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 85 

penitent tears. They did not come so quickly as in her 
old poetical days, but when they came they stung deeply. 
She was roused by a formal visit from a vestryman — one 
of the Music Committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her long 
lashes, put on a new neck ribbon, and went down to the 
parlour. She stayed there two hours ; a fact that might 
have occasioned some remark but that the vestryman was 
married and had a family of grown-up daughters. When 
Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang to herself 
in the glass and scolded Carry. But she retained her 
place in the choir. 

It was not long, however. In due course of time her 
enemies received a powerful addition to their forces in the 
committeeman's wife. That lady called upon several of 
the church members and on Dr. Cope's family. The result 
was that at a later meeting of the Music Committee Mrs. 
Tretherick's voice was declared inadequate to the size of 
the building, and she was invited to resign. She did so. 
She had been out of a situation for two months, and her 
scant means were almost exhausted when Ah Fe's unex- 
pected treasure was tossed into her lap. 

The gray fog deepened into night, and the street lamps 
started into shivering life, as, absorbed in these unprofitable 
memories, Mrs. Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. 
Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed, and her abrupt 
entrance with the damp evening paper in her hand roused 
Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active realisa- 
tion of the present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan 
the advertisements, in the faint hope of finding some avenue 
of employment — she knew not what — open to her needs, 
and Carry had noted this habit. 

Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters, lit the 
lights, and opened the paper. Her eye fell instinctively on 
the following paragraph in the telegraphic column : — 



S6 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

" Fiddletown, yth. Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident 
of this place, died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. 
Tretherick was addicted to intemperate habits, said to have 
been induced by domestic trouble." 

Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly turned over 
another page of the paper and glanced at Carry. The 
child was absorbed in a book. Mrs. Tretherick uttered 
no word, but during the remainder of the evening was 
unusually silent and cold. When Carry was undressed 
and in bed, Mrs. Tretherick suddenly dropped on her 
knees beside the bed, and taking Carry's flaming head 
between her hands, said — 

" Should you like to have another papa, Carry, darling?" 

" No," said Carry, after a moment's thought. 

" But a papa to help mamma take care of you — to love 
you, to give you nice clothes, to make a lady of you when 
you grow up ? " 

Carry turned her sleepy eyes toward the questioner. 
" Should _y^z^, mamma?" 

Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots of her 
hair. " Go to sleep," she said sharply, and turned away. 

But at midnight the child felt two white arms close 
tightly around her, and was drawn down into a bosom that 
heaved, fluttered, and at last was broken up by sobs. 

" Don't ky, mamma," whispered Carry, with a vague 
retrospect of their recent conversation. " Don't ky. I 
fink I should like a new papa if he loved you very much — 
very, very much ! " 

A month afterwards, to everybody's astonishment, Mrs. 
Tretherick was married. The happy bridegroom was one 
Colonel Starbottle, recently elected to represent Calaveras 
County in the legislative councils of the State. As I cannot 
record the event in finer language than that used by the 
correspondent of the *' Sacramento Globe," I venture to quote 



An Episode of Fiddletown, 87 

some of his graceful periods. "Tlie relentless shafts of 
the sly god have been lately busy among our gallant 
Solons. We quote ' one more unfortunate.' The latest 
victim is the Hon. A. Starbottle of Calaveras. The fair 
enchantress in the case is a beautiful widow, — a former 
votary of Thespis, and lately a fascinating St. Cecilia of one 
of the most fashionable churches of San Francisco, where 
she commanded a high salary." 

The "Dutch Flat Intelligencer" saw fit, however, to 
comment upon the fact with that humorous freedom charac- 
teristic of an unfettered press. " The new democratic war- 
horse from Calaveras has lately advented in the Legisla- 
ture with a little bill to change the name of Tretherick 
to Starbottle. They call it a marriage certificate down 
there. Mr. Tretherick has been dead just one month, but 
we presume the gallant Colonel is not afraid of ghosts." 
It is but just to Mrs. Tretherick to state that the Colonel's 
victory was by no means an easy one. To a natural degree 
of coyness on the part of the lady was added the impedi- 
ment of a rival — a prosperous undertaker from Sacramento, 
who had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the theatre 
and church ; his professional habits debarring him from 
ordinary social intercourse, and indeed any other than the 
most formal public contact with the sex. As this gentleman 
had made a snug fortune during the felicitous prevalence 
of a severe epidemic, the Colonel regarded him as a 
dangerous rival. Fortunately, however, the undertaker was 
called in professionally to lay out a brother-senator who 
had unhappily fallen by the Colonel's pistol in an affair of 
honour, and either deterred by physical consideration from 
rivalry, or wisely concluding that the Colonel was profes- 
sionally valuable, he withdrew from the field. 

The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a close by an 
untoward incident. During their bridal trip Carry had 
been placed in the charge of Colonel Starbottle's sister. On 



88 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

their return to the city, immediately on reaching their 
lodgings, Mrs. Starbottle announced her intention of at 
once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper's to bring the child 
home. Colonel Starbottle, who had been exhibiting for 
some time a certain uneasiness which he had endeavoured 
to overcome by repeated stimulation, finally buttoned his 
coat tightly across his breast, and after walking unsteadily 
once or twice up and down the room, suddenly faced his 
wife with his most imposing manner. 

" I have deferred," said the Colonel, with an exaggera- 
tion of port that increased with his inward fear, and a 
growing thickness of speech, " I have deferr — I may say 
poshponed statement o' fack thash my duty ter dishclose 
ter ye. I did no wish to mar su'shine mushal happ'ness — 
to bligh' bud o' promise, to darken conjuglar sky by unpleasht 
revelashun. Musht be done — by G — d, m'm, musht do it 
now. The chile is gone ! " 

" Gone ! " echoed Mrs. Starbottle. 

There was something in the tone of her voice — in the 
sudden drawing together of the pupils of her eyes, that for 
a moment nearly sobered the Colonel and partly collapsed 
his chest. 

" I'll 'splain all in a minit," he said with a deprecating 
wave of the hand, " everything shall be 'splained. The-the- 
the-melencholly event wish preshipitate our happ'ness — the 
myster'us prov'nice wish releash you — releash chile ! huner- 
stan'? — releash chile. The mom't Tretherick die — all claim 
you have in chile through him — die too. Thash law. 
Whose chile b'long to ? Tretherick ? Tretherick dead. 
Chile can't b'long dead man. Damn nonshense b'long 
dead man. I'sh your chile ? no ! who's chile then ? Chile 
b'long to 'ts mother. Unnerstan' ? " 

"Where is she?" said Mrs. Starbottle, with a very white 
face and a very low voice. 

"I'll 'splain all. Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Thash 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 89 

law. I'm lawyer, leshlator, and American sis'n. Ish my 
duty as lawyer, as leshlator, and 'merikan sis'n to reshtore 
chile to SLiffrin' mother at any coss — any coss." 

" Where is she ? " repeated Mrs. Starbottle with her eyes 
still fixed on the Colonel's face. 

" Gone to 'ts m'o'r. Gone East on shteamer yesserday. 
Waffed by fav'rin' gales to suff'rin' p'rent. Thash so ! " 

Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The Colonel felt his chest 
slowly collapsing, but steadied himself against a chair, and 
endeavoured to beam with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed 
with magisterial firmness upon her as she sat. 

" Your feelin's, m'm, do honour to yer sex, but conshider 
situashun. Conshider m'or's feefings — conshider my feel- 
in's." The Colonel paused, and flourishing a white hand- 
kerchief placed it negligently in his breast, and then smiled 
tenderly above it, as over laces and ruffles, on the woman 
before him. " Why should dark shedder cass bligh' on two 
sholes with single beat ? Chile's fine chile, good chile, but 
summonelse chile ! chile's gone, Clar' ; but all ishn't gone, 
Clar'. Conshider, dearesht, you all's have me ! " 

Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. " You!'' she cried, 
bringing out a chest note that made the chandeliers ring. 
"You that I married to give my darling food and clothes. 
You ! a dog that I whistled to my side to keep the men off 
me! You!'' 

She choked up, and then dashed past him into the inner 
room which had been Carry's ; then she swept by him 
again into her own bedroom, and then suddenly reappeared 
before him erect, menacing, with a burning fire over her 
cheek-bones, a quick straightening of her arched brows and 
mouth, a squaring of her jaw and an ophidian flattening of 
the head. 

" Listen ! " she said, in a hoarse, half-grown boy's voice. 
" Hear me ! If you ever expect to set eyes on me again 



90 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

you must find the child. If you ever expect to speak to 
me again — to touch me — you must bring her back. For 
where she goes, I go — you hear me ! — where she has gone, 
look for me ! " 

She struck out past him again, with a quick feminine 
throwing out of her arms from the elbows down, as if free- 
ing herself from some imaginary bonds, and dashing into 
her chamber slammed and locked the door. Colonel 
Starbottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious fear 
of an angry woman, and recoiling as she swept by, lost his 
unsteady foothold and rolled helplessly on the sofa. Here, 
after one or two unsuccessful attempts to regain his foot- 
hold, he remained, uttering from time to time profane but 
not entirely coherent or intelligible protests, until at last he 
succumbed to the exhausting quality of his emotions, and 
the narcotic quantity of his potations. 

Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly gathering 
her valuables and packing her trunk, even as she had done 
once before in the course of this remarkable history. Per- 
haps some recollection of this was in her mind, for she 
stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon her hand, as if 
she saw again the figure of the child standing in the door- 
way, and heard once more a childish voice asking, " Is it 
mamma?" But the epithet now stung her to the quick, 
and with a quick, passionate gesture, she dashed it away 
with a tear that had gathered in her eye. And then it 
chanced that in turning over some clothes she came upon 
the child's slipper with a broken sandal-string. She uttered 
a great cry here — the first she had uttered — and caught it 
to her breast, kissing it passionately again and again, and 
rocking from side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex. 
And then she took it to the window, the better to see it 
through her now streaming eyes. Here she was taken with 
a sudden fit of coughing that she could not stifle with the 



An Episode of Fiddletozvn. 91 

handkerchiet she put to her feverish lips. And then she 
suddenly grew very faint, the window seemed to recede 
before her, the floor to sink beneath her feet, and staggering 
to the bed, she fell prone upon it with the sandal and hand- 
kerchief pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale, 
the orbit of her eyes dark, and there was a spot upon her 
lip, another on her handkerchief, and still another on the 
white counterpane of the bed. 

The wind had risen, rattling the window sashes and 
swaying the white curtains in a ghostly way. Later, a gray 
fog stole softly over the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened 
surfaces, and enwrapping all things in an uncertain light 
and a measureless peace. She lay there very quiet — for 
all her troubles, still a very pretty bride. And on the other 
side of the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from his 
temporary couch, snored peacefully. 

A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the little town of 
Genoa, in the State of New York, exhibited, perhaps more 
strongly than at any other time, the bitter irony of its foun- 
ders and sponsors. A driving snowstorm that had whitened 
every windward hedge, bush, wall, and telegraph pole, 
played around this soft Italian capital, whirled in and out 
of the great, staring, wooden Doric columns of its post-office 
and hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its best 
houses, and powdered the angular, stiff, dark figures in its 
streets. From the level of the street the four principal 
churches of the town stood out starkly, even while their 
misshapen spires were kindly hidden in the low driving 
storm. Near the railroad station the new Methodist chapel, 
whose resemblance to an enormous locomotive was further 
heightened by the addition of a pyramidal row of front 
steps, like a cow-catcher, stood as if waiting for a few more 
houses to be hitched on to proceed to a pleasanter location. 
But the pride of Genoa — the great Crammer Institute for 



92 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

Young Ladies — stretched its bare brick length and reared 
its cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill above the 
principal avenue. There was no evasion in the Crammer 
Institute of the fact that it was a public institution. A 
visitor upon its doorstep, a pretty face at its window, were 
clearly visible all over the township. 

The shriek of the engine of the 4 o'clock Northern express 
brought but few of the usual loungers to the depot. Only 
a single passenger alighted and was driven away in the 
solitary waiting sleigh towards the Genoa Hotel. And then 
the train sped away again — with that passionate indifference 
to human sympathies or curiosity peculiar to express trains — 
the one baggage truck was wheeled into the station again, the 
station door was locked, and the station-master went home. 

The locomotive whistle, however, awakened the guilty 
consciousness of three young ladies of -the Crammer Institute 
who were even then surreptitiously regaling themselves in 
the bake-shop and confectionery saloon of Mrs. Phillips in a 
by-lane. For even the admirable regulations of the Institute 
failed to entirely develop the physical and moral natures of 
its pupils; they conformed to the excellent dietary rules in 
public, and in private drew upon the luxurious rations of 
their village caterer ; they attended church with exemplary 
formality, and flirted informally during service with the village 
beaux ; they received the best and most judicious instruction 
during school hours, and devoured the trashiest novels 
during recess. The result of which was an aggregation 
of quite healthy, quite human, and very charming young 
creatures, that reflected infinite credit on the Institute. 
Even Mrs. Phillips, to whom they owed vast sums, exhila- 
rated by the exuberant spirits and youthful freshness of 
her guests, declared that the sight of "them young things" 
did her good, and had even been known to shield them by 
shameless equivocation. 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 93 

" Four o'clock, girls ! and if we're not back to prayers by 
five we'll be missed," said the tallest of these foolish virgins 
with an aquiline nose and certain quiet elan that bespoke 
the leader, as she rose from her seat. " Have you got the 
books, Addy?" Addy displayed three dissipated-looking 
novels under her waterproof. " And the provisions. Carry?" 
Carry showed a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her 
sack. " All right, then. Come, girls, trudge. Charge it," 
she added, nodding to her host, as they passed towards the 
door. "Til pay you when my quarter's allowance comes." 

"No, Kate," interposed Carry, producing her purse; 
"let me pay — it's my turn." 

" Never ! " said Kate, arching her black brows loftily — 
"even if you do have rich relatives and regular remittances 
from California. Never. Come, girls — forward, march ! " 

As they opened the door a gust of wind nearly took them 
off their feet. Kindhearted Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. 
*' Sakes alive ! gals, ye mussn t go out in sich weather ; 
better let me send word to the Institoot and make ye up a 
nice bed to-night in my parlour." But the last sentence was 
lost in a chorus of half-suppressed shrieks as the girls, hand 
in hand, ran down the steps into the storm and were at once 
whirled away. 

The short December day, unlit by any sunset glow, was 
failing fast. It was quite dark already, and the air was 
thick with driving snow. For some distance their high 
spirits, youth, and even inexperience, kept them bravely up, 
but in ambitiously attempting a short cut from the high 
road across an open field their strength gave out, the laugh 
grew less frequent, and tears began to stand in Carry's 
brown eyes. When they reached the road again they were 
utterly exhausted. " Let us go back," said Carry. 

" We'd never get across that field again," said Addy. 

" Let's stop at the first house, then," said Carry. 



94 ^^ Episode of Ftddletown, 

*' The first house," said Addy, peering through the 
gathering darkness, "is Squire Robinson's," She darted a 
mischievous glance at Carry that even in her discomfort 
and fear brought the quick blood to her cheek. 

" Oh yes," said Kate with gloomy irony, " certainly, stop 
at the Squire's, by all nieans, and be invited to tea, and be 
driven home after tea by your dear friend Mr. Harry, with 
a formal apology from Mrs. Robinson, and hopes that the 
young ladies may be excused this time. No," continued 
Kate with sudden energy, " that may suit you — but I'm 
going back as I came — by the window — or not at all." 
Then she pounced suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who 
was betraying a tendency to sit down on a snowbank and 
whimper, and shook her briskly. " You'll be going to sleep 
next. Stay — hold your tongues, all of you — what's that ? " 

It was the sound of sleigh-bells. Coming down toward 
them out of the darkness was a sleigh with a single 
occupant. " Hold down your heads, girls, if it's anybody 
that knows us — we're lost." But it was not, for a voice 
strange to their ears, but withal very kindly and pleasant, 
asked if its owner could be of any help to them. As they 
turned toward him they saw it was a man wrapped in a 
handsome sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap — his face, 
half concealed by a muffler of the same material, disclosing 
only a pair of long moustaches and two keen dark eyes. 
" It's a son of old Santa Claus," whispered Addy. The 
girls tittered audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh — they 
had regained their former spirits. " Where shall I take 
you?" said the stranger quietly. There was a hurried 
whispering, and then Kate said boldly, "To the Institute." 
They drove silently up the hill until the long ascetic build- 
ing loomed up before them. The stranger reined up 
suddenly. " You know the way better than I," he said ; 
" where do you go in ? " " Through the back window," 



An Episode of Fiddletown, 95 

said Kate with sudden and appalling frankness. " I see ! " 
responded their strange driver quietly, and alighting quickly, 
removed the bells from the horses. " We can drive as 
near as you please now," he added by way of explanation. 
" He certainly is a son of Santa Claus," whispered Addy ; 
" hadn't we better ask after his father ? " " Hush," said 
Kate decidedly. " He is an angel, I daresay." She added 
with a delicious irrelevance, which was, however, perfectly 
understood by her feminine auditors, "We are looking 
like three frights." 

Cautiously skirting the fences, they at last pulled up a 
few feet from a dark wall. The stranger proceeded to 
assist them to alight. There was still some light from the 
reflected snow, and as he handed his fair companions to the 
ground each was conscious of undergoing an intense though 
respectful scrutiny. He assisted them gravely to open the 
window, and then discreetly retired to the sleigh until the 
difficult and somewhat discomposing ingress was made. 
He then walked to the window. " Thank you and good 
night, " whispered three voices. A single figure still lingered. 
The stranger leaned over the window-sill. " Will you per- 
mit me to light my cigar here ? it might attract attention if 
I struck a match outside." By the upspringing light he 
saw the figure of Kate very charmingly framed in by the 
window. The match burned slowly out in his fingers. Kate 
smiled mischievously. The astute young woman had 
detected the pitiable subterfuge. For what else did she 
stand at the head of her class, and had doting parents paid 
three years' tuition? 

The storm had passed, and the sun was shining quite 
cheerily in the eastern recitation-room the next morning, 
when Miss Kate, whose seat was nearest the window, 
placing her hand pathetically upon her heart, affected to 
fall in bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder of 



g6 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

Carry, her neighbour. " He has come ! " she gasped in a 
thrilling whisper. " Who ? " asked Carry sympathetically, 
who never clearly understood when Kate was in earnest. 
" Who ? — why, the man who rescued us last night ! I saw 
him drive to the door this moment. Don't speak — I shall 
be better in a moment ; there ! " she said, and the shame- 
less hypocrite passed her hand pathetically across her fore- 
head with a tragic air. 

"What can he want?" asked Carry, whose curiosity 
was excited. 

" I don't know," said Kate, suddenly relapsing into 
gloomy cynicism. '•'' Possibly to put his five daughters to 
school. Perhaps to finish his young wife and warn her 
against us." 

*' He didn't look old, and he didn't seem like a married 
man," rejoined Addy thoughtfully. 

** That was his art, you poor creature ! " returned Kate 
scornfully ; " you can never tell anything of these men — 
they are so deceitful. Besides, it's just my fate ! " 

" Why, Kate" began Carry, in serious concern. 

" Hush, Miss Walker is saying something," said Kate, 
laughing. 

" The young ladies will please give attention," said a slow 
perfunctory voice. "Miss Carry Tretherick is wanted in 
the parlour." 

Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given on the card 
and various letters and credentials submitted to the Rev. 
Mr. Crammer, paced the somewhat severe apartment known 
publicly as the " Reception Parlour," and privately to the 
pupils as " Purgatory." His keen eyes had taken in the 
various rigid details, from the flat steam " Radiator " like 
an enormous japanned soda-cracker, that heated one end of 
the room, to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer that 
hopelessly chilled the other; from the Lord's Prayer; 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 97 

executed by a former writing-master in such gratuitous 
variety of elegant caligraphic trifling as to considerably 
abate the serious value of the composition, to three views 
of Genoa from the Institute, which nobody ever recognised, 
taken on the spot by the drawing teacher ; from two illu- 
minated texts of Scripture in an English letter, so gratui- 
tously and hideously remote as to chill all human interest, 
to a large photograph of the senior class, in which the 
prettiest girls were Ethiopian in complexion, and sat 
(apparently) on each other's heads and shoulders; — his 
fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of school catalogues, 
the Sermons of Dr. Crammer, the Poems of Henry Kirke 
White, the " Lays of the Sanctuary," and " Lives of Cele- 
brated Women ; " — his fancy, and it was a nervously active 
one, had gone over the partings and greetings that must 
have taken place here, and wondered why the apartment 
had yet caught so little of the flavour of humanity ; — 
indeed, I am afraid he had almost forgotten the object of 
his visit when the door opened and Carry Tretherick stood 
before him. 

It was one of those faces he had seen the night before — 
prettier even than it had seemed then — and yet I think he 
was conscious of some disappointment, without knowing 
exactly why. Her abundant waving hair was of a guinea- 
golden tint, her complexion of a peculiar flower-like delicacy, 
her brown eyes of the colour of seaweed in deep water. 
It certainly was not her beauty that disappointed him. 

Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression. Carry 
was, on her part, quite as vaguely ill at ease. She saw 
before her one of those men whom the sex would vaguely 
generalise as "nice" — that is to say, correct in all the super- 
ficial appointments of style, dress, manners, and feature. 
Yet there was a decidedly unconventional quality about him 
— he was totally unlike anything or anybody that she could 

VOL. III. G 



98 All Episode of Fiddle town. 

remember, and, as the attributes of originality are often as 
apt to alarm as to attract people, she was not entirely pre- 
possessed in his favour. 

"I can hardly hope," he began pleasantly, "that you 
remember me. It is eleven years ago, and you were a very 
little girl. I am afraid I cannot even claim to have enjoyed 
that familiarity that might exist between a child of six and 
a young man of twenty-one. I don't think I was fond of 
children. But I knew your mother very well. I was editor 
of the 'Avalanche' in Fiddletown when she took you to 
San Francisco." 

" You mean my stepmother — she wasn't my mother, you 
know," interposed Carry hastily. 

Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. " I mean your step- 
mother," he said gravely. " I never had the pleasure of 
meeting your mother." 

" No, mother hasn't been in California these twelve years.' 

There was an intentional emphasising of the title and of 
its distinction, that began to coldly interest Prince after his 
first astonishment was past. 

"As I come from your stepmother now," he went on, 
with a slight laugh, " I must ask you to go back for a few 
moments to that point. After your father's death, your 
mother — I mean your stepmother — recognised the fact that 
your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick, was legally and 
morally your guardian, and although much against her 
inclination and affections, placed you again in her charge." 

" My stepmother married again within a month after 
father died, and sent me home," said Carry with great 
directness, and the faintest toss of her head. 

Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently so sym- 
pathetically, that Carry began to like him. With no other 
notice of the interruption he went on : " After your step- 
mother had performed this act of simple justice, she entered 



An Episode of Fiddletow7i. 99 

into an agreement with your mother to defray the expenses 
of your education until your eighteenth year, when you were 
to elect and choose which of the two should thereafter be 
your guardian, and with whom you would make your home. 
This agreement, I think, you are already aware of, and I 
believe knew at the time." 

" I was a mere child, then," said Carry. 

" Certainly," said Mr. Prince with the same smile \ " still 
the conditions, I think, have never been oppressive to you 
nor your mother, and the only time they are likely to give 
you the least uneasiness will be when you come to make up 
your mind in the choice of your guardian. That will be on 
your eighteenth birthday — the 20th, I think, of the present 
month." 

Carry was silent. 

"Pray do not think that I am here to receive your 
decision, even if it be already made. I only came to 
inform you that your stepmother, Mrs. Starbottle, will be in 
town to-morrow, and will pass a few days at the hotel. If it 
is your wish to see her before you make up your mind, she 
will be glad to meet you. She does not, however, wish to 
do anything to influence your judgment." 

" Does mother know she is coming?" said Carry hastily. 

" I do not know," said Prince gravely ; " I only know 
that if you conclude to see Mrs. Starbottle, it will be with 
your mother's permission. Mrs. Starbottle will keep sacredly 
this part of the agreement, made ten years ago. But her 
health is very poor, and the change and country quiet of 
a few days may benefit her." Mr. Prince bent his keen, 
bright eyes upon the young girl, and almost held his breath 
until she spoke again. 

" Mother's coming up to-day or to-morrow," she said, 
looking up. 

" Ah ! " said Mr. Prince with a sweet and languid smile. 



ICO A 71 Episode of Fiddle town. 

" Is Colonel Starbottle here too ? " asked Carry after a 
pause. 

" Colonel Starbottle is dead ; your stepmother is again a 
widow." 

" Dead ! " repeated Carry. 

" Yes," replied Mr. Prince, "your stepmother has been 
singularly unfortunate in surviving her affections." 

Carry did not know what he meant, and looked so. Mr. 
Prince smiled reassuringly. 

Presently Carry began to whimper. 

Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair. 

" I am afraid," he said, with a very peculiar light in his 
eye, and a singular dropping of the corners of his moustache, 
" I am afraid you are taking this too deeply. It will be 
some days before you are called upon to make a decision. 
Let us talk of something else. I hope you caught no cold 
last evening." 

Carry's face shone out again in dimples. 

" You must have thought us so queer ! It was too bad 
to give you so much trouble." 

" None whatever, I assure you. My sense of propriety," 
he added demurely, " which might have been outraged had 
I been called upon to help three young ladies out of a 
schoolroom window at night, was deeply gratified at being 
able to assist them in again." The door-bell rang loudly, 
and Mr. Prince rose. " Take your own time, and think 
well before you make your decision." But Carry's ear and 
attention were given to the sound of voices in the hall. At 
the same moment the door was thrown open and a servant 
announced, " Mrs. Tretherick and Mr. Robinson." 

The afternoon train had just shrieked out its usual 
indignant protest at stopping at Genoa at all, as Mr. Jack 
Prince entered the outskirts of the town and drove towards 
his hotel. He was wearied and cynical ; a drive of a dozen 



An Episode of Fiddletown. loi 

miles through unpicturesque outlying villages, past small 
economic farmhouses and hideous villas that violated his 
fastidious taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a captious 
state of mind. He would have even avoided his taciturn 
landlord as he drove up to the door, but that functionary 
waylaid him on the steps. " There's a lady in the sittin'- 
room waitin' for ye." Mr. Prince hurried upstairs and 
entered the room as Mrs. Starbottle flew towards him. 

She had changed sadly in the last ten years. Her figure 
was wasted to half its size ; the beautiful curves of her bust 
and shoulders were broken or inverted ; the once full, 
rounded arm was shrunken in its sleeve, and the golden 
hoops that encircled her wan wrists almost slipped from her 
hands as her long, scant fingers closed convulsively around 
Jack's. Her cheek-bones were painted that afternoon with 
the hectic of fever ; somewhere in the hollows of those 
cheeks were buried the dimples of long ago, but their 
graves were forgotten ; her lustrous eyes were still beautiful, 
though the orbits were deeper than before ; her mouth was 
still sweet, although the lips parted more easily over the 
little teeth, and even in breathing — and showed more of 
them than she was wont to do before. The glory of her 
blonde hair was still left ; it was finer, more silken and 
ethereal, yet it failed even in its plenitude to cover the 
hollows of the blue-veined temples. 

" Clara," said Jack reproachfully. 

"Oh, forgive me. Jack," she said, falling into a chair 
but still clinging to his hand, " forgive me, dear, but I could 
not wait longer. I should have died, Jack, died before 
another night. Bear with me a little longer — it will not be 
long — but let me stay. I may not see her, I know — I 
shall not speak to her — but it's so sweet to feel that I am 
at last near her — that 1 breathe the same air with my 
darling — I am better already. Jack, I am indeed. And 



I o 2 An Episode of Fiddletown, 

you have seen her to-day ? How did she look ? what did 
she say ? — tell me all — everything, Jack. Was she beautiful ? 
— they say she is ! Has she grown ? Would you have 
known her again ? Will she come, Jack ? Perhaps she 
has been here already — perhaps " — she had risen with 
tremulous excitement, and was glancing at the door, "per- 
haps she is here now. Why don't you speak, Jack ? — tell 
me all." 

The keen eyes that looked down into hers were glistening 
with an infinite tenderness that none perhaps but she would 
have deemed them capable of. " Clara," he said gently 
and cheerily, " try and compose yourself. You are trem- 
bling now with the fatigue and excitement of your journey. 
I have seen Carry — she is well and beautiful ! Let that 
suffice you now." 

His gentle firmness composed and calmed her now as it 
had often done before. Stroking her thin hand, he said 
after a pause, " Did Carry ever write to you ? " 

" Twice — thanking me for some presents ; they were 
only schoolgirl letters," she added, nervously answering 
the interrogation of his eyes. 

" Did she ever know of your own troubles ? of your 
poverty ? of the sacrifices you made to pay her bills ? of 
your pawning your clothes and jewels ? of your " 

*' No no," interrupted the woman quickly, "no ! How 
could she ? I have no enemy cruel enough to tell her 
that" 

"But if she — or if Mrs. Tretherick — had heard of it? 
If Carry thought you were poor and unable to support her 
properly, it might influence her decision. Young girls are 
fond of the position that wealth can give. She may have 
rich friends — maybe a lover." 

Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence. " But," she 
said eagerly, grasping Jack's hand, " when you found me 



A n Episode of Fiddletown. 103 

sick and helpless at Sacramento — when you — God bless you 
for it, Jack ! — offered to help me to the East, you said you 
knew of something — you had some plan — that woul dmake 
me and Carry independent." 

" Yes," said Jack hastily, " but I want you to get strong 
and well first. And now that you are calmer, you shall 
listen to my visit to the school." 

It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded to describe 
the interview already recorded with a singular felicity and 
discretion that shames my own account of that proceeding. 
Without suppressing a single fact, without omitting a w^ord 
or detail, he yet managed to throw a poetic veil over that 
prosaic episode — to invest the heroine with a romantic 
roseate atmosphere, which, though not perhaps entirely 
imaginary, still I fear exhibited that genius which ten years 
ago had made the columns of the " Fiddletown Avalanche " 
at once fascinating and instructive. It was not until he saw 
the heightening colour, and heard the quick breathing of his 
eager listener, that he felt a pang of self-reproach. " God 
help her and forgive me," he muttered between his clenched 
teeth, " but how can I tell her all now ! " 

That night when Mrs. Starbottle laid her weary head 
upon her pillow she tried to picture to herself Carry at the 
same moment sleeping peacefully in the great schoolhouse 
on the hill, and it was a rare comfort to this yearning, 
foolish woman to know that she was so near. But at this 
moment Carry was sitting on the edge of her bed, half 
undressed, pouting her pretty lips, and twisting her long, 
leonine locks between her fingers, as Miss Kate Van 
Corlear, dramatically wrapped in a long white counterpane, 
her black eyes sparkling, and her thoroughbred nose thrown 
high in the air, stood over her like a wrathful and indignant 
ghost ; for Carry had that evening imparted her woes and 
her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady had "proved 



I04 Ail Episode of Fiddletown. 

herself no friend," by falling into a state of fiery indignation 
over Carry's "ingratitude," and openly and shamelessly 
espousing the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. " Why, if the half 
you tell me is true, your mother and those Robinsons are 
making of you not only a little coward but a little snob, 
miss. Respectability, forsooth ! Look you ! my family are 
centuries before the Trethericks, but if my family had ever 
treated me in this way, and then asked me to turn my back 
on my best friend, I'd whistle them down the wind ! " and 
here Kate snapped her fingers, bent her black brows, and 
glared around the room, as if in search of a recreant Van 
Corlear. 

*' You just talk this way because you have taken a fancy 
to that Mr. Prince," said Carry. 

In the debasing slang of the period that had even found 
its way into the virgin cloisters of the Crammer Institute, 
Miss Kate, as she afterwards expressed it, instantly " went 
for her." 

First, with a shake of her head she threw her long black 
hair over one shoulder, then dropping one end of the 
counterpane from the other like a vestal tunic, she stepped 
before Carry with a purposely exaggerated classic stride. 
" And what if I have, miss ? What if I happen to know a 
gentleman when I see him ? What if I happen to know 
that among a thousand such traditional, conventional, feeble 
editions of their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you 
cannot find one original, independent, individualised gentle- 
man like your Prince ! Go to bed, miss ! and pray to 
Heaven that he may be your Prince indeed ! Ask to have 
a contrite and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in par- 
ticular for having sent you such a friend as Kate Van 
Corlear ! " Yet, after an imposing dramatic exit, she reap- 
peared the next moment as a straight white flash, kissed 
Carry between the brows, and was gone. 



An Episode of Fiddletown. 105 

The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. He was 
convinced in his mind that Carry would not come, yet to 
keep this consciousness from Mrs. Starbottle, to meet her 
simple hopefulness with an equal degree of apparent faith, 
was a hard and difficult task. He would have tried to 
divert her mind by taking her on a long drive, but she was 
fearful that Carry might come during her absence, and her 
strength, he was obliged to admit, had failed greatly. As 
he looked into her large and awe-inspiring clear eyes, a 
something he tried to keep from his mind — to put off day 
by day from contemplation — kept asserting itself directly 
to his inner consciousness. He began to doubt the expe- 
diency and wisdom of his management ; he recalled every 
incident of his interview with Carry, and half believed 
that its failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle was 
very patient and confident ; her very confidence shook his 
faith in his own judgment. When her strength was equal 
to the exertion, she was propped up in her chair by the 
window, where she could see the school and the entrance 
to the hotel. In the intervals she would elaborate pleasant 
plans for the future, and would sketch a country home. 
She had taken a strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to 
the present location, but it was notable that the future 
always thus outlined was one of quiet and repose. She 
believed she would get well soon ; in fact she thought she 
was now much better than she had been, but it might be 
long before she should be quite strong again. She would 
whisper on in this way until Jack would dash madly down 
into the bar-room, order liquors that he did not drink, 
light cigars that he did not smoke, talk with men that he 
did not listen to, and behave generally as our stronger sex 
is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and perplexity. 

The day closed with a clouded sky and a bitter searching 
wind. With the night fell a few wandering flakes of snow. 



io6 A 71 Episode of Fiddletown, 

She was still content and hopeful, and as Jack wheeled her 
from the window to the fire, she explained to him how that, 
as the school term was drawing near its close, Carry was 
probably kept closely at her lessons during the day, and 
could only leave the school at night. So she sat up the 
greater part of the evening and combed her silken hair, and, 
as far as her strength would allow, made an undress toilette 
to receive her guest. "We must not frighten the child, 
Jack," she said apologetically and with something of her 
old coquetry. 

It was with a feeling of relief that, at ten o'clock, Jack 
received a message from the landlord, saying that the 
doctor would like to see him for a moment downstairs. As 
Jack entered the grim, dimly-lighted parlour, he observed 
the hooded figure of a woman near the fire. He was about 
to withdraw again, when a voice that he remembered very 
pleasantly said — 

" Oh, it's all right. I'm the doctor." 

The hood was thrown back, and Prince saw the shining 
black hair, and black, audacious eyes, of Kate Van Corlear. 

" Don't ask any questions. I'm the doctor, and there's 
my prescription," and she pointed to the half-frightened, 
half-sobbing Carry in the corner ; "to be taken at once !" 

" Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her permission ? " 

" Not much, if I know the sentiments of that lady," 
replied Kate saucily. 

" Then how did you get away ? " asked Prince gravely. 

"By the window." 

When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms of her 
stepmother, he returned to the parlour. 

" Well ? " demanded Kate. 

" She will stay — you will, I hope, also to-night." 

"As I shall not be eighteen and my own mistress on the 
2oth, and as I haven't a sick stepmother, I won't." 



An Episode of Fiddletown, 107 

" Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing you safely 
through the window again ? " 

When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he found Carry 
sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Starbottle's feet. Her head 
was in her stepmother's lap, and she had sobbed herself to 
sleep. Mrs. Starbottle put her finger to her lip. " I told 
you she would come. God bless you. Jack, and good 
night." 

The next morning Mrs. Tretherick, indignant, the Rev. 
Asa Crammer, Principal, injured, and Mr. Joel Robinson, 
Senior, complacently respectable, called upon Mr. Prince. 
There was a stormy meeting, ending in a demand for 
Carry. " We certainly cannot admit of this interference," 
said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashionably-dressed, indistinctive- 
looking woman ; " it is several days before the expiration of 
our agreement, and we do not feel, under the circumstances, 
justified in releasing Mrs. Starbottle from its conditions." 
*' Until the expiration of the school term, we must consider 
Miss Tretherick as complying entirely with its rules and dis- 
cipline," interposed Dr. Crammer. " The whole proceeding 
is calculated to injure the prospects and compromise the 
position of Miss Tretherick in society," suggested Mr. 
Robinson. 

In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condition of Mrs. 
Starbottle, her absolute freedom from complicity with Carry's 
flight, the pardonable and natural instincts of the girl, and 
his own assurance that they were willing to abide by her 
decision. And then, with a rising colour in his cheek, a 
dangerous look in his eye, but a singular calmness in his 
speech, he added — 

" One word more. It becomes my duty to inform you 
of a circumstance which would certainly justify me, as an 
executor of the late Mr. Tretherick, in fully resisting your 
demands. A few months after Mr. Tretherick's death, 



io8 An Episode of Fiddletow?i, 

through the agency of a Chinaman in his employment, it 
was discovered that he had made a will, which was subse- 
quently found among his papers. The insignificant value of 
his bequest — mostly land, then quite valueless — prevented 
his executors froni carrying out his wishes, or from even 
proving the will, or making it otherwise publicly known, until 
within the last two or three years, when the property had 
enormously increased in value. The provisions of that be- 
quest are simple, but unmistakable. The property is divided 
between Carry and her stepmother, with the explicit condi' 
tion that Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal guardian, 
provide for her education, and in all details stand to her in 
loco parentis.^'' 

" What is the value of this bequest ? " asked Mr. Robin- 
son. "I cannot tell exactly, but not far from half a million, 
I should say," returned Prince. "Certainly, with this 
knowledge, as a friend of Miss Tretherick, I must say that 
her conduct is as judicious as it is honourable to her," 
responded Mr. Robinson. " I shall not presume to question 
the wishes or throw any obstacles in the way of carrying out 
the intentions of my dead husband," added Mrs. Tretherick, 
and the interview was closed. 

When its result was made known to Mrs. Starbottle, she 
raised Jack's hand to her feverish lips. " It cannot add to 
my happiness now. Jack, but tell me, why did you keep it 
from her ? " Jack smiled, but did not reply. 

Within the next week the necessary legal formalities were 
concluded, and Carry was restored to her stepmother. At 
Mrs. Starbottle's request a small house in the outskirts of the 
town was procured, and thither they removed to wait the 
spring and Mrs. Starbottle's convalescence. Both came 
tardily that year. 

Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond of watching 
the budding of the trees beyond her window — a novel sight 



A 71 Episode of Fiddietown. 109 

to her Californian experience — and of asking Carry their 
names and seasons. Even at this time she projected for 
that summer, which seemed to her so mysteriously withheld, 
long walks with Carry through the leafy woods whose gray, 
misty ranks she could see along the hill-top. She even 
thought she could write poetry about them, and recalled 
the fact as evidence of her gaining strength \ and there is, I 
believe, still treasured by one of the members of this little 
household, a little carol, so joyous, so simple, and so innocent, 
that it might have been an echo of the robin that called to 
her from the window, as perhaps it was. 

And then without warning there dropped from heaven a 
day so tender, so mystically soft, so dreamily beautiful, so 
throbbing and alive with the fluttering of invisible wings, so 
replete and bounteously overflowing with an awakening and 
joyous resurrection not taught by man or limited by creed — 
that they thought it fit to bring her out and lay her in that 
glorious sunshine that sprinkled like the droppings of a 
bridal torch the happy lintels and doors. And there she lay, 
beatified and calm. 

Wearied by watching, Carry had fallen asleep by her side, 
and Mrs. Starbottle's thin fingers lay like a benediction on 
her head. Presently she called Jack to her side. 

"Who was that," she whispered, "who just came in?" 

" Miss Van Corlear," said Jack, answering the look in her 
great hollow eyes. 

" Jack," she said after a moment's silence, " sit by me a 
moment, dear Jack ; I've something I must say. If I ever 
seemed hard or cold or coquettish to you in the old days, it 
was because I loved you, Jack, too well to mar your future 
by linking it with my own. I always loved you, dear Jack, 
even when I seemed least worthy of you. That is gone now ; 
but I had a dream lately. Jack, a foolish woman's dream, 
that you might find what I lacked in her" and she glanced 



I lo An Episode of Fiddletown, 

lovingly at the sleeping girl at her side — " that you might 
love her as you have loved me. But even that is not to be, 
Jack — is it ? " and she glanced wistfully in his face. Jack 
pressed her hand, but did not speak. After a few moments' 
silence she again said, " Perhaps you are right in your 
choice. She is a good-hearted girl, Jack — but a little bold." 
And with this last flicker of foolish, weak humanity in her 
struggling spirit, she spoke no more. When they came to 
her a moment later, a tiny bird that had lit upon her breast 
flew away, and the hand that they Ufted from Carry's head 
fell lifeless at her side. 



HI 



a Fa0i8^age in tDe life of S^t. 3Io|)n 

He always thought it must have been Fate. Certainly 
nothing could have been more inconsistent with his habits 
than to have been in the Plaza at seven o'clock of that 
midsummer morning. The sight of his colourless face in 
Sacramento was rare at that season, and indeed at any 
season, anywhere, publicly, before two o'clock in the after- 
noon. Looking back upon it in after years, in the light of 
a chanceful life, he determined, with the characteristic 
philosophy of his profession, that it must have been Fate. 

Yet it is my duty, as a strict chronicler of facts, to state 
that Mr. Oakhurst's presence there that morning was due 
to a very simple cause. At exactly half-past six, the bank 
being then a winner to the amount of twenty thousand 
dollars, he had risen from the faro-table, relinquished his 
seat to an accomplished assistant, and withdrawn quietly, 
without attracting a glance from the silent, anxious faces 
bowed over the table. But when he entered his luxurious 
sleeping-room, across the passage-way, he was a little 
shocked at finding the sun streaming through an inadver- 
tently-opened window. Something in the rare beauty of the 
morning, perhaps something in the novelty of the idea^ 
struck him as he was about to close the blinds, and he 
hesitated. Then, taking his hat from the table, he stepped 
down a private staircase into the street. 



112 A Passage in the Life 

The people who were abroad at that early hour were of 
a class quite unknown to Mr. Oakhurst. There were milk- 
men and hucksters delivering their wares, small trades- 
people opening their shops, housemaids sweeping door- 
steps, and occasionally a child. These Mr. Oakhurst 
regarded with a certain cold curiosity, perhaps quite free 
from the cyni-cal disfavour with which he generally looked 
upon the more pretentious of his race whom he was in the 
habit of meeting. Indeed, I think he was not altogether 
displeased with the admiring glances which these humble 
women threw after his handsome face and figure, conspi- 
cuous even in a country of fine-looking men. While it is 
very probable that this wicked vagabond, in the pride of his 
social isolation, would have been coldly indifferent to the 
advances of a fine lady, a little girl who ran admiringly by 
his side in a ragged dress had the power to call a faint flush 
into his colourless cheek. He dismissed her at last, but 
not until she had found out — what sooner or later her large- 
hearted and discriminating sex inevitably did — that he was 
exceedingly free and open-handed with his money, and also 
— what perhaps none other of her sex ever did — that the 
bold black eyes of this fine gentleman were in reality of a 
brownish and even tender gray. 

There was a small garden before a white cottage in a 
side street that attracted Mr. Oakhurst's attention. It was 
filled with roses, heliotrope, and verbena — flowers familiar 
enough to him in the expensive and more portable form of 
bouquets, but, as it seemed to him then, never before so 
notably lovely. Perhaps it was because the dew was yet 
fresh upon them, perhaps it was because they were un- 
plucked, but Mr. Oakhurst admired them, not as a possible 
future tribute to the fascinating and accomplished Miss 
Ethelinda, then performing at the Varieties, for Mr. Oak- 
hurst's especial benefit, as she had often assured him — nor 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 1 1 3 

yet as a douceur to the enthralling Miss Montmorrissy, with 
whom Mr. Oakhurst expected to sup that evening, but 
simply for himself, and mayhap for the flowers' sake. How- 
beit he passed on and so out into the open plaza, where, 
finding a bench under a cotton-wood tree, he first dusted 
the seat with his handkerchief, and then sat down. 

It was a fine morning. The air was so still and calm 
that a sigh from the sycamores seemed like the deep-drawn 
breath of the just awakening tree, and the faint rustle of its 
boughs as the outstretching of cramped and reviving limbs. 
Far away the Sierras stood out against a sky so remote as 
to be of no positive colour ; so remote that even the sun 
despaired of ever reaching it, and so expended its strength 
recklessly on the whole landscape, until it fairly glittered in 
a white and vivid contrast. With a very rare impulse, Mr. 
Oakhurst took off his hat, and half reclined on the bench, 
with his face to the sky. Certain birds who had taken a 
critical attitude on a spray above him apparently began an 
animated discussion regarding his possible malevolent in- 
tentions. One or two, emboldened by the silence, hopped 
on the ground at his feet, until the sound of wheels on the 
gravel walk frightened them away. 

Looking up, he saw a man coming slowly towards him, 
wheeling a nondescript vehicle in which a woman was partly 
sitting, partly reclining. Without knowing why, Mr. Oak 
hurst instantly conceived that the carriage was the invention 
and workmanship of the man, partly from its oddity, partly 
from the strong, mechanical hand that grasped it, and partly 
from a certain pride and visible consciousness in the manner 
in which the man handled it. Then Mr. Oakhurst saw 
something more : the man's face was familiar. With that 
regal faculty of not forgetting a face that had ever given 
him professional audience, he instantly classified it under 
the following mental formula : — " At 'Frisco, Polka Saloon. 

VOL. III. H 



114 -^ Passage in the Life 

Lost his week's wages. I reckon — seventy dollars — on red. 
Never came again." There was, however, no trace of this 
in the calm eyes and unmoved face that he turned upon 
the stranger, who, on the contrary, blushed, looked embar- 
rassed, hesitated, and then stopped with an involuntary 
motion that brought the carriage and its fair occupant face 
to face with Mr. Oakhurst. 

I should hardly do justice to the position she will occupy 
in this veracious chronicle by describing the lady now — if, 
indeed, I am able to do it at all. Certainly, the popular 
estimate was conflicting. The late Colonel Starbottle — to 
whose large experience of a charming sex I have before 
been indebted for many valuable suggestions — had, I re- 
gret to say, depreciated her fascinations. " A yellow-faced 
cripple, by dash — a sick woman, with mahogany eyes. One 
of your blanked spiritual creatures — with no flesh on her 
bones." On the other hand, however, she enjoyed later 
much complimentary disparagement from her own sex. 
Miss Celestina Howard, second leader in the ballet at the 
Varieties, had, with great alliterative directness, in after 
years, denominated her as an "aquiline asp." Mile. Brim- 
borion remembered that she had always warned "Mr. 
Jack " that this woman would " empoison " him. But Mr. 
Oakhurst, whose impressions are perhaps the most impor- 
tant, only saw a pale, thin, deep-eyed woman — raised above 
the level of her companion by the refinement of long suffer- 
ing and isolation, and a certain shy virginity of manner. 
There was a suggestion of physical purity in the folds of her 
fresh-looking robe, and a certain picturesque tastefulness in 
the details, that, without knowing why, made him think that 
the robe was her invention and handiwork, even as the 
carriage she occupied was evidently the work of her com- 
panion. Her own hand, a trifle too thin, but well-shaped, 
subtle-fingered^ and gentlewomanly, rested on the side of 



of M7\ John Oakluirst, 1 1 5 

the carriage, the counterpart of the strong mechanical grasp 
of her companion's. 

There was some obstruction to the progress of the vehicle, 
and Mr. Oakhurst stepped forward to assist. While the 
wheel was being lifted over the curbstone, it was necessary 
that she should hold his arm, and for a moment her thin 
hand rested there, light and cold as a snowflake, and then 
— as it seemed to him — like a snowflake melted away. 
Then there was a pause, and then conversation — the lady 
joining occasionally and shyly. 

It appeared that they were man and wife. That for the 
past two years she had been a great invalid, and had lost 
the use of her lower limbs from rheumatism. That until 
lately she had been confined to her bed, until her husband 
— who was a master carpenter — had bethought himself to 
make her this carriage. He took her out regularly for an 
airing before going to work, because it was his only time, 
and — they attracted less attention. They had tried many 
doctors, but without avail. They had been advised to go 
to the Sulphur Springs, but it was expensive. Mr. Decker, 
the husband, had once saved eighty dollars for that purpose, 
but while in San Francisco had his pocket picked — Mr. 
Decker was so senseless. (The intelligent reader need not 
be told that it is the lady who is speaking.) They had never 
been able to make up the sum again, and they had given 
up the idea. It was a dreadful thing to have one's pocket 
picked. Did he not think so ? 

Her husband's face was crimson, but Mr. Oakhurst's 
countenance was quite calm and unmoved, as he gravely 
agreed with her, and walked by her side until they passed 
the little garden that he had admired. Here Mr. Oakhurst 
commanded a halt, and, going to the door, astounded the 
proprietor by a preposterously extravagant offer for a choice 
of the flowers. Presently he returned to the carriage with 



1 16 A Passage 171 the Life 

his arms full of roses, heliotrope, and verbena, and cast 
them in the lap of the invalid. While she was bending 
over them with childish delight, Mr. Oakhurst took the 
opportunity of drawing her husband aside. 

" Perhaps," he said in a low voice, and a manner quite 
free from any personal annoyance, "perhaps it's just as 
well that you lied to her as you did. You can say now that 
the pickpocket was arrested the other day, and you got 
your money back." Mr. Oakhurst quietly slipped four 
twenty-dollar gold pieces into the broad hand of the be- 
wildered Mr. Decker. "Say that — or anything you like — 
but the truth. Promise me you won't say that ! " 

The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly returned to 
the front of the little carriage. The sick woman was still 
eagerly occupied with the flowers, and as she raised her eyes 
to his, her faded cheek seemed to have caught some colour 
from the roses, and her eyes some of their dewy freshness. 
But at that instant Mr. Oakhurst lifted his hat, and before 
she could thank him was gone. 

I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly broke his 
promise. That night, in the very goodness of his heart and 
uxorious self-abnegation — he, like all devoted husbands, not 
only offered himself, but his friend and benefactor, as a 
sacrifice on the family altar. It is only fair, however, to 
add, that he spoke with great fervour of the generosity of 
Mr. Oakhurst, and dealt with an enthusiasm quite common 
with his class on the mysterious fame and prodigal vices of 
the gambler. 

" And now, Elsie, dear, say that you'll forgive me," said 
Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee beside his wife's couch ; 
" I did it for the best. It was for you, dearey, that I put 
that money on them cards that night in 'Frisco. I thought 
to win a heap — enough to take you away, and enough left 
to get you a new dress." 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 1 1 7 

Mrs. Decker smiled and pressed her husband's hand. 
"I do forgive you, Joe, dear," she said, still smiling, with 
eyes abstractedly fixed on the ceiling ; " and you ought to 
be whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy, and making 
me make such a speech. There, say no more about it. If 
you'll be very good hereafter, and will just now hand me 
that cluster of roses, I'll forgive you." She took the branch 
in her fingers, lifted the roses to her face, and presently said, 
behind their leaves — 

"Joe!" 

" What is it, lovey ? " 

"Do you think that this Mr. — what do you call him? — 
Jack Oakhurst would have given that money back to you 
if I hadn't made that speech ? " 

"Yes." 

" If he hadn't seen me at all ? " 

Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had managed in some 
way to cover up her whole face with the roses, except her 
eyes, which were dangerously bright. 

"No: it was you, Elsie — it was all along of seeing you 
that made him do it." 

*' A poor sick woman like me ? " 

"A sweet, little, lovely, pooty Elsie — Joe's own little 
wifey ! How could he help it ? " 

Mrs. Decker fondly cast one arm around her husband's 
neck, still, keeping the roses to her face with the other. 
From behind them she began to murmur gently and idioti- 
cally, " Dear, ole square Joey. Elsie's oney booful big 
bear." But, really, I do not see that my duty as a chroni- 
cler of facts compels me to continue this little lady's speech 
any further, and out of respect to the unmarried reader I 
stop. 

Nevertheless, the next morning Mrs. Decker betrayed 
some slight and apparently uncalled-for irritability on reach- 



1 18 A Passage in the Life 

ing the plaza, and presently desired her husband to wheel 
her back home. Moreover, she was very much astonished 
at meeting Mr. Oakhurst just as they were returning, and 
even doubted if it were he, and questioned her husband as to 
his identity with the stranger of yesterday as he approached. 
Her manner to Mr. Oakhurst, also, was quite in contrast 
with her husband's frank welcome. Mr. Oakhurst instantly 
detected it. " Her husband has told her all, and she dis- 
likes me," he said to himself, with that fatal appreciation of 
the half truths of a woman's motives that causes the wisest 
masculine critic to stumble. He lingered only long enough 
to take the business address of the husband, and then lift- 
ing his hat gravely, without looking at the lady, went his 
way. It struck the honest master carpenter as one of the 
charming anomalies of his wife's character, that, although 
the meeting was evidently very much constrained and un- 
pleasant, instantly afterward his wife's spirits began to rise. 
*' You was hard on him — a leetle hard, wasn't you, Elsie ? " 
said Mr. Decker deprecatingly. " I'm afraid he may think 
I've broke my promise." " Ah, indeed," said the lady 
indifferently. Mr. Decker instantly stepped round to the 
front of the vehicle. " You look like an A i first-class lady 
riding down Broadway in her own carriage, Elsie," said he ; 
**I never seed you lookin' so peart and sassy before." 

A few days later the proprietor of the San Isabel Sulphur 
Springs received the following note in Mr. Oakhurst's Well- 
known dainty hand : — 

*' Dear Steve, — I've been thinking over your proposition 
to buy Nichols' quarter interest, and have concluded to go 
in. But I don't see how the thing will pay until you have 
more accommodation down there, and for the best class — 
I mean my customers. What we want is an extension to 
the main building, and two or three cottages put up. I 



of Mr. John Oakluirst. 1 1 9 

send down a builder to take hold of the job at once. He 
takes his sick wife with him, and you are to look after them 
as you would for one of us. 

" I may run down there myself, after the races, just to look 
after things ; but I shan't set upon any game this season. — 
Yours alwa3-s, John Oakhurst." 

It was only the last sentence of this letter that pro- 
voked criticism. "I can understand," said Mr. Hamlin, 
a professional brother, to whom Mr. Oakhurst's letter was 
shown — " I can understand why Jack goes in heavy and 
builds, for it's a sure spec, and is bound to be a mighty 
soft thing in time, if he comes here regularly. But why in 
blank he don't set up a bank this season and take the chance 
of getting some of the money back that he puts into circula- 
tion in building, is what gets me. I wonder now," he mused 
deeply, "what is his little game." 

The season had been a prosperous one to Mr. Oakhurst, 
and proportionally disastrous to several members of the 
Legislature, judges, colonels, and others who had enjoyed 
but briefly the pleasure of Mr. Oakhurst's midnight society. 
And yet Sacramento had become very dull to him. He 
had lately formed a habit of early-morning walks — so 
unusual and startling to his friends, both male and female, 
as to occasion the intensest curiosity. Two or three of the 
latter set spies upon his track, but the inquisition resulted 
only in the discovery that Mr. Oakhurst walked to the 
plaza, sat down upon one particular bench for a few 
moments, and then returned without seeing anybody, and 
the theory that there was a woman in the case was aban- 
doned. A few superstitious gentlemen of his own profession 
believed that he did it for "luck." Some. others, more 
practical, declared that he went out to " study points." 

After the races at Marysville, Mr. Oakhurst went to San 



I 20 A Passage in the Life 



<b 



Francisco ; from that place he returned to Marysville, but 
a few days after was seen at San Jose, Santa Cruz, and 
Oakland. Those who met him declared that his manner 
was restless and feverish, and quite unlike his ordinary 
calmness and phlegm. Colonel Starbottle pointed out the 
fact that at San Francisco, at the club. Jack had declined to 
deal. " Hand shaky, sir — depend upon it ; don't stimulate 
enough — blank him ! " 

From San Jose he started to go to Oregon by land with 
a rather expensive outfit of horses and camp equipage, but 
on reaching Stockton he suddenly diverged, and four hours , 
later found him with a single horse entering the canon of 
the San Isabel Warm Sulphur Springs. 

It was a pretty triangular valley lying at the foot of three 
sloping mountains, dark with pines and fantastic with 
madrono and manzanita. Nestling against the mountain 
side, the straggling buildings and long piazza of the hotel 
glittered through the leaves ; and here and there shone a 
white toy-like cottage. Mr. Oakhurst was not an admirer 
of nature, but he felt something of the same novel satisfac- 
tion in the view that he experienced in his first morning 
walk in Sacramento. And now carriages began to pass 
him on the road filled with gaily-dressed women, and the 
cold California outlines of the landscape began to take 
upon themselves somewhat of a human warmth and colour. 
And then the long hotel piazza came in view, efflorescent 
with the full-toileted fair. Mr. Oakhurst, a good rider 
after the California fashion, did not check his speed as he 
approached his destination, but charged the hotel at a 
gallop, threw his horse on his haunches within a foot of 
the piazza, and then quietly emerged from the cloud of 
dust that veiled his dismounting. 

Whatever feverish excitement might have raged within, 
all his habitual calm returned as he stepped upon the 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 121 

piazza. With the instinct of long habit he turned and 
faced the battery of eyes with the same cold indifference 
with which he had for years encountered the half-hidden 
sneers of men and the half-frightened admiration of women. 
Only one person stepped forward to welcome him. Oddly 
enough, it was Dick Hamilton, perhaps the only one 
present who, by birth, education, and position, might have 
satisfied the most fastidious social critic. Happily for Mr. 
Oakhurst's reputation, he was also a very rich banker and 
social leader. " Do you know who that is you spoke to ? " 
asked young Parker, with an alarmed expression. " Yes," 
rephed Hamilton, with characteristic effrontery ; " the man 
you lost a thousand dollars to last week. / only know 
him socially^ "But isn't he a gambler?" queried the 
youngest Miss Smith. " He is," replied Hamilton, " but I 
wish, my dear young lady, that we all played as open and 
honest a game as our friend yonder, and were as willing as 
he is to abide by its fortunes." 

But Mr. Oakhurst was happily out of hearing of this 
colloquy, and was even then lounging listlessly, yet watch- 
fully, along the upper hall. Suddenly he heard a light 
footstep behind him, and then his name called in a famiUar 
voice that drew the blood quickly to his heart. He turned, 
and she stood before him. 

But how transformed ! If I have hesitated to describe 
the hollow-eyed cripple — the quaintly-dressed artisan's wife, 
a few pages ago — what shall I do with this graceful, shapely, 
elegantly-attired gentlewoman into whom she has been 
merged within these two months ? In good faith, she was 
very pretty. You and I, my dear madam, would have 
been quick to see that those charming dimples were mis- 
placed for true beauty, and too fixed in their quality for 
honest mirthfulness, that the delicate Hues around these 
aquiline nostrils were cruel and selfish, that the sweet, 



122 A Passage in the Life 

virginal surprise of these lovely eyes were as apt to be 
opened on her plate as upon the gallant speeches of her 
dinner partner, that her sympathetic colour came and went 
more with her own spirits than yours. But you and I are 
not in love with her, dear madam, and Mr. Oakhurst is. 
And even in the folds of her Parisian gown, I am afraid 
this poor fellow saw the same subtle strokes of purity that 
he had seen in her homespun robe. And then there was 
the delightful revelation that she could walk, and that she 
had dear little feet of her own in the tiniest slippers of her 
French shoemaker — with such preposterous blue bows, and 
Chappell's own stamp. Rue de something or other, Paris, 
on the narrow sole. 

He ran towards her with a heightened colour and out- 
stretched hands. But she whipped her own behind her, 
glanced rapidly up and down the long hall, and stood 
looking at him with a half-audacious, half-mischievous 
admiration in utter contrast to her old reserve. 

" I've a great mind not to shake hands with you at all. 
You passed me just now on the piazza without speaking, 
and I ran after you, as I suppose many another poor woman 
has done." 

Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so changed. 

" The more reason why you should know me. Who 
changed me ? You. You have recreated me. You found 
a helpless, crippled, sick, poverty-stricken woman, with one 
dress to her back, and that her own make, and you gave 
her life, health, strength, and fortune. You did, and you 
know it, sir. How do you like your work ? " She caught 
the side seams of her gown in either hand and dropped him 
a playful courtesy. Then, with a sudden, relenting gesture, 
she gave him both her hands. 

Outrageous as this speech was, and unfeminine, as I 
trust every fair reader will deem it, I fear it pleased Mr. 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 123 

Oakhurst Not but that he was accustomed to a certain 
frank female admiration ; but then it was of the coulisses 
and not of the cloister, with which he always persisted in 
associating Mrs. Decker. To be addressed in this way 
by an invalid Puritan, a sick saint, with the austerity of 
suffering still clothing her ; a woman who had a Bible on 
the dressing-table, who went to church three times a day, 
and was devoted to her husband, completely bowled him 
over. He still held her hands as she went on — 

"Why didn't you come before? What were you doing 
in Marysville, in San Jose, in Oakland ? You see I have 
followed you. I saw you as you came down the canon, 
and knew you at once. I saw your letter to Joseph, and 
knew you were coming. Why didn't you write to me ? 
You will some time ! Good evening, Mr. Hamilton." 

She had withdrawn her hands, but not until Hamilton, 
ascending the staircase, was nearly abreast of them. He 
raised his hat to her with well-bred composure, nodded 
familiarly to Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone 
Mrs. Decker lilted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst. " Some day 
I shall ask a great favour of you ! " 

Mr. Oakhurst begged that it should be now. " No, not 
until you know me better. Then, some day, I shall want 
you to — kill that man ! " 

She laughed, such a pleasant little ringing laugh, such a 
display of dimples — albeit a little fixed in the corners of 
her mouth — such an innocent light in her brown eyes, and 
such a lovely colour in her cheeks, that Mr. Oakhurst — who 
seldom laughed — was fain to laugh too. It was as if a 
lamb had proposed to a fox a foray into a neighbouring 
sheepfold. 

A few evenings after this, Mrs. Decker arose from a 
charmed circle of her admirers on the hotel piazza, excused 
herself for a few moments, laughingly declined an escort, 



124 A Passage in the Life 

and ran over to her little cottage— one of her husband's 
creation— across the road. Perhaps from the sudden and 
unwonted exercise in her still convalescent state, she 
breathed hurriedly and feverishly as she entered her boudoir, 
and once or twice placed her hand upon her breast. She 
was startled on turning up the light to find her husband 
lying on the sofa. 

"You look hot and excited, Elsie, love," said Mr. Decker; 
"you ain't took worse, are you ? " 

Mrs. Decker's face had paled, but now flushed again. 
"No," she said, "only a little pain here," as she again 
placed her hand upon her corsage. 

"Can I do anything for you?" said Mr. Decker, rising 
with affectionate concern. 

"Run over to the hotel and get me some brandy, 
quick ! " 

Mr. Decker ran. Mrs. Decker closed and bolted the 
door, and then putting her hand to her bosom, drew out 
the pain. It was folded four square, and was, I grieve to 
say, in Mr. Oakhurst's handwritino-. 

She devoured it with burning eyes and cheeks until there 
came a step upon the porch. Then she hurriedly replaced 
it in her bosom and unbolted the door. Her husband 
entered; she raised the spirits to her lips and declared 
herself better. 

"Are you going over there again to-night?" asked Mr. 
Decker submissively. 

" No," said Mrs. Decker, with her eyes fixed dreamily 
on the floor. 

"I wouldn't if I was you," said Mr. Decker with a sigh 
of relief. After a pause he took a seat on the sofa, and 
drawing his wife to his side, said, " Do you know what I was 
thinking of when you came in, Elsie ? " Mrs. Decker ran her 
fingers through his stiff black hair, and couldn't imagine. 



of Mr. John Oaklmrst. 125 

" I was thinking of old times, Elsie ; I was thinking of 
the days when I built that kerridge for you, Elsie — when I 
used to take you out to ride, and was both hoss and driver ! 
We was poor then, and you was sick, Elsie, but we was 
happy. We've got money now, and a house, and you're 
quite another woman. I may say, dear, that you're a neiu 
woman. And that's where the trouble comes in. I could 
build you a kerridge, Elsie; I could build you a house, 
Elsie — but there I stopped. I couldn't build up you. 
You're strong and pretty, Elsie, and fresh and new. But 

! somehow, Elsie, you ain't no work of mine ! " 

He paused. With one hand laid gently on his forehead 

; and the other pressed upon her bosom as if to feel certain 
of the presence of her pain, she said sweetly and 
soothingly — 

I " But it was your work, dear." 

Mr. Decker shook his head sorrowfully. "No, Elsie, 
not mine. I had the chance to do it once and I let it go. 
It's done now ; but not by me." 

Mrs. Decker raised her surprised, innocent eyes to his. 

I He kissed her tenderly and then went on in a more cheer- 
ful voice. 

" That ain't all I was thinking of, Elsie. I was thinking 
that maybe you give too much of your company to that Mr. 

! Hamilton. Not that there's any wrong in it, to you or him. 

; But it might make people talk. You're the only one here, 

j Elsie," said the master carpenter, looking fondly at his wife, 
*'who isn't talked about; whose work ain't inspected or 
condemned ? " 

Mrs. Decker was glad he had spoken about it. She had 
thought so, too, but she could not well be uncivil to Mr. 
Hamilton, who was a fine gentleman, without making a 
powerful enemy. " And he's always treated me as if I was 
a born lady in his own circle," added the little woman, with 



126 A Passage in the Life 

a certain pride that made her husband fondly smile. " But 
I have thought of a plan. He will not stay here if I 
should go away. If, for instance, I went to San Francisco 
to visit ma for a few days, he would be gone before I 
should return." 

Mr. Decker was delighted. " By all means," he said ; "go 
to-morrow. Jack Oakhurst is going down, and I'll put you 
in his charge." 

Mrs. Decker did not think it was prudent. " Mr. Oak- 
hurst is our frie-"d, Joseph, but you know his reputation." 
In fact, she did not know that she ought to go now, knowing 
that he was going the same day ; but with a kiss Mr. Decker 
overcame her scruples. She yielded gracefully. Few women, 
in fact, knew how to give up a point as charmingly as she. 

She stayed a week in San Francisco. When she returned 
she was a trifle thinner and paler than she had been. This 
she explained as the result of perhaps too active exercise and 
excitement. " I was out of doors nearly all the time, as ma 
will tell you," she said to her husband, "and always alone. 
I am getting quite independent now," she added gaily, " I 
don't want any escort — I believe, Joey dear, I could get 
along even without you — I'm so brave ! " 

But her visit, apparently, had not been productive of her 
impelling design. Mr. Hamilton had not gone, but had 
remained, and called upon them that very evening. " I've 
thought of a plan, Joey, dear," said Mrs. Decker when he 
had departed. " Poor Mr. Oakhurst has a miserable room 
at the hotel — suppose you ask him when he returns from San 
Francisco to stop with us. He can have our spare room. 
I don't think," she added archly, " that Mr. Hamilton will 
call often." Her husband laughed, intimated that she was 
a little coquette, pinched her cheek, and complied. " The 
queer thing about a woman," he said afterwards confidentially 
to Mr. Oakhurst, " is, that without having any plan of her 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 127 

own, she'll take anybody's and build a house on it entirely 
different to suit herself. And dern my skin, if you'll be able 
to say whether or not you didn't give the scale and measure- 
ments yourself. That's what gets me." 

The next week Mr. Oakhurst was installed in the Deckers' 
cottage. The business relations of her husband and himself 
were known to all, and her own reputation was above sus- 
picion. Indeed, few women were more popular. She was 
domestic, she was prudent, she was pious. In a country of 
great feminine freedom and latitude, she never rode or 
walked with anybody but her husband ; in an epoch of 
slang and ambiguous expression, she was always precise and 
formal in her speech; in the midst of a fashion of ostenta- 
tious decoration she never wore a diamond, nor a single 
valuable jewel. She never permitted an indecorum in pubhc ; 
she never countenanced the familiarities of California society. 
She declaimed against the prevailing tone of infidelity and 
scepticism in religion. Few people, who were present, will 
ever forget the dignified yet stately manner with which she 
rebuked Mr. Hamilton in the public parlour for entering 
upon the discussion of a work on materialism, lately pub- 
lished, — and some among them, also,, will not forget the 
expression of amused surprise on Mr. Hamilton's face that 
gradually changed to sardonic gravity as he courteously 
waived his point. Certainly not Mr. Oakhurst, who, from 
that moment, began to be uneasily impatient of his friend, 
and even — if such a term could be apphed to any moral 
quality in Mr. Oakhurst — to fear him. 

For, during this time, Mr. Oakhurst had begun to show 
symptoms of a change in his usual habits. He was seldom, 
if ever, seen in his old haunts, in a bar-room, or with his old 
associates. Pink and white notes, in distracted handwriting, 
accumulated on the dressing-table in his rooms at Sacra- 
mento. It was given out in San Francisco that he had some 



128 A Passage in the Life 

organic disease of the heart, for which his physician had 
prescribed perfect rest. He read more, he took long walks, 
he sold his fast horses, he went to church. 

I have a very vivid recollection of his first appearance 
there. He did not accompany the Deckers, nor did he go 
into their pew, but came in as the service commenced, and 
took a seat quietly in one of the back pews. By some mys- 
terious instinct his presence became presently known to the 
congregation, some of whom so far forgot themselves, in 
their curiosity, as to face around and apparently address 
their responses to him. Before the service was over it was 
pretty well understood that " miserable sinners " meant Mr. 
Oakhurst. Nor did this mysterious influence fail to affect 
the officiating clergyman, who introduced an allusion to Mr. 
Oakhurst's calling and habits in a sermon on the architecture 
of Solomon's Temple, and in a manner so pointed and yet 
laboured as to cause the youngest of us to flame with indig- 
nation. Happily, however, it was lost upon Jack — I do not 
think he even heard it. His handsome, colourless face — 
albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful — was inscrutable. Only 
once, during the singing of a hymn, at a certain note in the 
contralto's voice, there crept into his dark eyes a look of 
wistful tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless that those 
who were watching him felt their own glisten. Yet I retain 
a very vivid remembrance of his standing up to receive the 
benediction, with the suggestion, in his manner and tightly- 
buttoned coat, of taking the fire of his adversary at ten 
paces. After church he disappeared as .quietly as he had 
entered, and fortunately escaped hearing the comments on 
his rash act. His appearance was generally considered as 
an impertinence — attributable only to some wanton fancy — 
or possibly a bet. One or two thought that the sexton was 
exceedingly remiss in not turning him out after discovering 
who he was ; and a prominent pewholder remarked that if 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 129 

he couldn't take his wife and daughters to that church 
without exposing them to such an influence, he would try 
to find some church where he could. Another traced Mr. 
Oakhurst's presence to certain Broad Church radical ten- 
dencies, which he regretted to say he had lately noted in 
their pastor. Deacon Sawyer, whose delicately organised, 
sickly wife, had already borne him eleven children, and died 
in an ambitious attempt to complete the dozen, avowed that 
the presence of a person of Mr. Oakhurst's various and in- 
discriminate gallantries, was an insult to the memory of the 
deceased, that, as a man, he could not brook. 

It was about this time that Mr. Oakhurst, contrasting 
himself with a conventional world in which he had hitherto 
rarely mingled, became aware' that there was something in 
his face, figure, and carriage, quite unlike other men — 
something that if it did not betray his former career, at 
least show^ed an individuality and originality that was 
suspicious. In this behef he shaved off his long, silken 
moustache, and religiously brushed out his clustering curls 
every morning. He even went so far as to affect a negli- 
gence of dress and hid his small, slim, arched feet in the 
largest and heaviest walking shoes. There is a story told 
that he w^ent to his tailor in Sacramento, and asked him to 
make him a suit of clothes like everybody else. The tailor, 
familiar with Islx. Oakhurst's fastidiousness, did not know 
what he meant. " I mean," said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, 
"something respectable — something that doesn't exactly fit 
me, you know." But however Mr. Oakhurst might hide 
his shapely limbs in homespun and home-made garments, 
there was something in his carriage, something in the pose' 
of his beautiful head, something in the strong and fine 
manliness of his presence, something in the perfect and 
utter discipline and control of his muscles, something in 
the high repose of his nature — a repose not so much a 

VOL. III. I 



130 A Passage in the Life 

matter of intellectual ruling as of his very nature — that go 
where he would, and with whom, he was always a notable 
man in ten thousand. Perhaps this was never so clearly 
intimated to Mr. Oakhurst as when, emboldened by Mr. 
Hamilton's advice and assistance and his own predilections, 
he became a San Francisco broker. Even before objection 
was made to his presence in the Board — the objection, I 
remember, was urged very eloquently by Watt Sanders, 
who was supposed to be the inventor of the " freezing out " 
system of disposing of poor stockholders, and who also 
enjoyed the reputation of having been the impelling cause 
of Briggs of Tuolumne's ruin and suicide — even before 
this formal protest of respectability against lawlessness, the 
aquiline suggestions of Mr. Oakhurst's mien and counte- 
nance, not only prematurely fluttered the pigeons, but abso- 
lutely occasioned much uneasiness among the fish-hawks, 
who circled below him with their booty. " Dash me ! 
but he's as likely to go after us as anybody," said Joe 
Fielding. 

It wanted but a few days before the close of the brief 
summer season at San Isabel Warm Springs. Already 
there had been some migration of the more fashionable, 
and there was an uncomfortable suggestion of dregs and 
lees in the social life that remained. Mr. Oakhurst was 
moody; it was hinted that even the secure reputation of 
Mrs. Decker could no longer protect her from the gossip 
which his presence excited. It is but fair to her to say that 
during the last few weeks of this trying ordeal she looked 
like a sweet, pale martyr, and conducted herself toward her 
traducers with the gentle, forgiving manner of one who 
relied not upon the idle homage of the crowd, but upon 
the security of a principle that was dearer than popular 
favour. "They talk about myself and Mr. Oakhurst, my 
dear," she said to a friend, " but Heaven and my husband 



of Mr. John Oaklmrst. 131 

can best answer their calumny. It never shall be said that 
my husband ever turned his back upon a friend in the 
moment of his adversity because the position was changed, 
because his friend was poor and he was rich." This 
was the first intimation to the public that Jack had 
lost money, although it was known generally that the 
Deckers had lately bought some valuable property in San 
Francisco. 

A few evenings after this an incident occurred which 
seemed to unpleasantly discord with the general social 
harmony that had always existed at San Isabel. It was 
at dinner, and Mr. Oakhurst and Mr. Hamilton, who sat 
together at a separate table, were observed to rise in some 
agitation. When they reached the hall, by a common 
instinct they stepped into a little breakfast-room which was 
vacant and closed the door. Then Mr. Hamilton turned, 
with a half-amused, half-serious smile, toward his friend, 
and said — 

" If we are to quarrel. Jack Oakhurst — you and I — in 
the name of all that is ridiculous, don't let it be about 
a !" 

I do not know what was the epithet intended. It was 
either unspoken or lost. For at that very instant Mr. 
Oakhurst raised a wine-glass and dashed its contents into 
Hamilton's face. 

As they faced each other the men seemed to have 
changed natures. Mr. Oakhurst was trembling with excite- 
ment, and the wine-glass that he returned to the table 
shivered between his fingers. Mr. Hamilton stood there, 
grayish-white, erect, and dripping. After a pause he said 
coldly — 

" So be it. But remember ! our quarrel commences 
here. If I fall by your hand, you shall not use it to clear 
her character ; if you fall by mine, you shall not be called 



132 A Passage in the Life 



a martyr. I am sorry it has come to this, but amen ! — the 
-sooner now the better." 

He turned proudly, dropped his lids over his cold steel- 
blue eyes, as if sheathing a rapier, bowed, and passed coldly 
out. 

They met twelve hours later in a little hollow two miles 
from the hotel, on the Stockton road. As Mr. Oakhurst 
received his pistol from Colonel Starbottle's hands he said 
to him in a low voice, " Whatever turns up or down I shall 
not return to the hotel. You will find some directions in 

my room. Go there " but his voice suddenly faltered, 

and he turned his glistening eyes away, to his second's 
intense astonishment. " I've been out a dozen times with 
Jack Oakhurst," said Colonel Starbotde afterwards, "and I 
never saw him anyways cut before. Blank me if I didn't 
think he was losing his sand, till he walked to position." 

The two reports were almost simultaneous. Mr. Oak- 
hurst's right arm dropped suddenly to his side, and his pistol 
would have fallen from his paralysed fingers, but the dis- 
cipline of trained nerve and muscle prevailed, and he kept 
his grasp until he had shifted it to the other hand, without 
changing his position. Then there was a silence that seemed 
interminable, a gathering of two or three dark figures where 
a smoke curl still lazily floated, and then the hurried, husky, 
panting voice of Colonel Starbottle in his ear, " He's hit 
hard — through the lungs — you must run for it ! " 

Jack turned his dark, questioning eyes upon his second, 
but did not seem to listen, rather seemed to hear some 
other voice, remoter in the distance. He hesitated, and 
then made a step forward in the direction of the distant 
group. Then he paused again as the figures separated, and 
the surgeon came hastily toward him. 

*' He would like to speak with you a moment," said 
the man. " You have little time to lose, I know ; but," he 



of Mr, John Oakhurst. 133 

added in a lower voice, " it is my duty to tell you he has 
still less." 

A look of despair, so hopeless in its intensity, swept over Mr. 
Oakhurst's usually impassive face, that the surgeon started. 
" You are hit," he said, glancing at Jack's helpless arm. 

" Nothing — a mere scratch," said Jack hastily. Then he 
added, with a bitter laugh, " I'm not in luck to-day. But 
come ! We'll see what he wants." 

His long, feverish stride outstripped the surgeon's, and in 
another moment he stood where the dying man lay — Hke 
most dying men — the one calm, composed, central figure of 
an anxious group. Mr. Oakhurst's face was less calm as he 
dropped on one knee beside him and took his hand. " I 
want to speak with this gentleman alone," said Hamilton, 
with something of his old imperious manner, as he turned 
to those about him. When they drew back, he looked up 
in Oakhurst's face. 

" I've something to tell you, Jack." 

His own face was white, but not so white as that which 
Mr. Oakhurst bent over him — a face so ghastly, with haunt- 
ing doubts and a hopeless presentiment of coming evil — a 
face so piteous in its infinite weariness and envy of death, 
that the dying man was touched, even in the languor of 
dissolution, with a pang of compassion, and the cynical 
smile faded from his lips. 

" Forgive me, Jack," he whispered more feebly, " for 
what I have to say. I don't say it in anger, but only 
because it must be said. I could not do my duty to you — 
I could not die contented until you knew it all. It's a 
miserable business at best, all around. But it can't be 
helped now. Only I ought to have fallen by Decker's 
pistol and not yours." 

A flush like fire came into Jack's cheek, and he would 
have risen, but Hamilton held him fast. 



134 ^ Passage in the Life 

" Listen ! in my pocket you will find two letters. Take 
them — there ! You will know the handwriting. But pro- 
mise you will not read them until you are in a place of 
safety. Promise me ! " 

Jack did not speak, but held the letters between his 
fingers as if they had been burning coals. 

" Promise me," said Hamilton faintly. 

"Why?" asked Oakhurst, dropping his friend's hand coldly. 

" Because," said the dying man with a bitter smile — 
" because — when you have read them — you — will — go 
back — to capture — and death ! " 

They were his last words. He pressed Jack's hand 
faintly. Then his grasp relaxed, and he fell back a corpse. 

It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and Mrs. Decker 
reclined languidly upon the sofa with a novel in her hand, 
while her husband discussed the politics of the country in 
the bar-room of the hotel. It was a warm night, and the 
French window looking out upon a little balcony was partly 
open. Suddenly she heard a foot upon the balcony, and 
she raised her eyes from the book with a slight start. The 
next moment the window was hurriedly thrust wide and a 
man entered. 

Mrs. Decker rose to her feet with a little cry of alarm. 

" For heaven's sake, Jack, are you mad ? He has only 
gone for a little while — he may return at any moment 
Come an hour later — to-morrow — any time when I can get 
rid of him — but go, now, dear, at once." 

Mr. Oakhurst walked toward the door, bolted it, and 
then faced her without a word. His face was haggard, his 
coat-sleeve hung loosely over an arm that was bandaged 
and bloody. 

Nevertheless, her voice did not falter as she turned again 
toward him. " What has happened, Jack ? Why are you 
here?" 



of Mr. John Oakhurst, 135 

He opened his coat, and threw two letters in her lap. 

"To return your lover's letters — to kill you — and then 
myself," he said in a voice so low as to be almost 
inaudible. 

Among the many virtues of this admirable woman was 
invincible courage. She did not faint, she did not cry out. 
She sat quietly down again, folded her hands in her lap, 
and said calmly — 

"And why should you not?" 

Had she recoiled, had she shown any fear or contrition, 
had she essayed an explanation or apology, Mr. Oakhurst 
would have looked upon it as an evidence of guilt. But 
there is no quality that courage recognises so quickly as 
courage ; there is no condition that desperation bows before 
but desperation ; and Mr. Oakhurst's power of analysis was 
not so keen as to prevent him from confounding her 
courage with a moral quality. Even in his fury he could 
not help admiring this dauntless invalid. 

" Why should you not ? " she repeated with a smile. "You 
gave me life, health, and happiness, Jack. You gave me 
your love. Why should you not take what you have given. 
Go on. I am ready." 

She held out her hands with that same infinite grace of 
yielding with which she had taken his own on the first day 
of their meeting at the hotel. Jack raised his head, looked 
at her for one wild moment, dropped upon his knees beside 
her, and raised the folds of her dress to his feverish lips. 
But she was too clever not to instantly see her victory ; she 
was too much of a woman, with all her cleverness, to refrain 
from pressing that victory home. At the same moment, as 
with the impulse of an outraged and wounded woman, she 
rose and, with an imperious gesture, pointed to the window. 
Mr. Oakhurst rose in his turn, cast one glance upon her, and 
without another word passed out of her presence for ever. 



136 A Passage in the Life 

When he had gone, she closed the window and bolted 
it, and going to the chimneypitce placed the letters, one 
by one, in the flame of the candle until they were consumed. 
I would not have the reader think that during this painful 
operation she was unmoved. Her hand trembled and — 
not being a brute — for some minutes (perhaps longer) she 
felt very badly, and the corners of her sensitive mouth were 
depressed. When her husband arrived it was with a 
genuine joy that she ran to him, and nestled against his 
broad breast with a feeling of security that thrilled the 
honest fellow to the core. 

" But I've heard dreadful news to-night, Elsie," said 
Mr. Decker, after a few endearments were exchanged. 

" Don't tell me anything dreadful, dear ; I'm not well 
to-night," she pleaded sweetly. 

" But it's about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton." 

"Please!" Mr. Decker could not resist the petitionary 
grace of those white hands and that sensitive mouth, and 
took her to his arms. Suddenly he said, " What's that ?" 

He was pointing to the bosom of her white dress. 
Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her there was a spot 
of blood. 

It was nothing; she had slightly cut her hand in closing 
the window ; it shut so hard ! If Mr. Decker had remem- 
bered to close and bolt the shutter before he went out, he 
might have saved her this. There was such a genuine 
irritability and force in this remark that Mr. Decker was 
quite overcome by remorse. But Mrs. Decker forgave him 
"with that graciousness which I have before pointed out in 
these pages, and with the halo of that forgiveness and 
marital confidence still lingering above the pair, with the 
reader's permission, v/e will leave them and return to Mr. 
Oakhurst. 

But not for two weeks. At the end of that time he 



of Mr. John Oakhurst. 1 37 

walked into his rooms in Sacramento, and in his old manner 
took his seat at the faro-table. 

" How's your arm, Jack ? " asked an incautious plaj'er. 

There was a smile followed the question, which, however, 
ceased as Jack looked up quietly at the speaker. 

" It bothers my dealing a little, but I can shoot as well 
with my left." 

The game was continued in that decorous silence which 
usually distinguished the table at which Mr. John Oakhurst 
presided. 



( 138 ) 



Cfie Koge or CuDlumne* 

CHAPTER I. 

It was nearly two o'clock in the morning. The lights were 
out in Robinson's Hall, where there had been dancing and 
revelry, and the moon, riding high, painted the black win- 
dows with silver. The cavalcade that an hour ago had 
shocked the sedate pines with song and laughter, were all 
dispersed ; one enamoured swain had ridden east, another 
west, another north, another south, and the object of their 
adoration, left within her bower at Chemisal Ridge, was 
calmly going to bed. 

\ I regret that I am not able to indicate the exact stage of 
that process. Two chairs were already filled with delicate 
enwrappings and white confusion, and the young lady her- 
self, half hidden in the silky threads of her yellow hair, had 
at one time borne a faint resemblance to a partly-husked 
ear of Indian corn. But she was now clothed in that one 
long, formless garment that makes all women equal, and 
the round shoulders and neat waist that an hour ago had 
been so fatal to the peace of mind of Four Forks had utterly 
disappeared. The face above it was very pretty ; the foot 
below, albeit shapely, was not small. "The flowers, as a 
general thing, don't raise their heads mt^c/z to look after 
me," she had said with superb frankness to one of her 
lovers. 



The Rose of Tuolumne, 139 

The expression of " The Rose " to-night was contentedly 
placid. She walked slowly to the window, and, making the 
smallest possible peep-hole through the curtain, looked out 
The motionless figure of a horseman still lingered on the 
road, with an excess of devotion that only a coquette or a 
woman very much in love could tolerate. " The Rose " at 
that moment was neither, and after a reasonable pause 
turned away, saying, quite audibly, that it was " too ridicu- 
lous for anything." As she came back to her dressing-table 
it was noticeable that she walked steadily and erect, without 
that slight affectation of lameness common to people with 
whom bare feet are only an episode. Indeed, it was only 
four years ago that, without shoes or stockings, a long- 
limbed, colty girl, in a waistless calico gown, she had leaped 
from the tail-board of her father's emigrant waggon when 
it first drew up at Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild habits 
of the Rose had outlived transplanting and cultivation. 

A knock at the door surprised her. In another moment 
she had leaped into bed, and, with darkly-frowning eyes, 
from its secure recesses demanded " Who's there ? " 

An apologetic murmur on the other side of the door was 
the response. 

*' Why, father, is that you ? " 

There w^ere further murmurs, affirmative, deprecatory, and 
persistent. 

"Wait," said the Rose. She got up, unlocked the door, 
leaped nimbly into bed again, and said, "Come." 

The door opened timidly. The broad, stooping shoulders 
and grizzled head of a man past the middle age appeared ; 
after a moment's hesitation a pair of large, diffident feet, 
shod with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When the 
apparition was complete it closed the door softly, and stood 
there — a very shy ghost indeed, with apparently more than 
the usual spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. 



140 The Rose of Ttwlumne. 

The Rose resented this impatiently, though I fear not alto- 
gether intelligibly — 

" Do, father, I declare ! " 

"You was abed, Jinny," said Mr. M'Closky slowly, glanc- 
ing with a singular mixture of masculine awe and paternal 
pride upon the two chairs and their contents. " You was 
a-bed and ondressed." 

"I was." 

"Surely," said Mr. M'Closky, seating himself on the ex- 
treme edge of the bed, and painfully tucking his feet away 
under it, "surely." After a pause he rubbed a short, thick, 
stumpy beard, that bore a general resemblance to a badly- 
worn blacking-brush, with the palm of his hand, and went 
on, " You had a good time, Jinny ? " 

"Yes, father." 

" They was all there ? " 

" Yes, Ranee and York and Ryder and Jack." 

"And Jack !" Mr. M'Closky endeavoured to throw an 
expression of arch inquiry into his small, tremulous eyes, but 
meeting the unabashed, widely-opened lid of his daughter, 
he winked rapidly and blushed to the roots of his hair. 

"Yes, Jack was there," said Jinny, without change of 
colour, or the least self-consciousness in her great gray eyes, 
"and he came home with me." She paused a moment, 
locking her two hands under her head, and assuming a 
more comfortable position on the pillow. " He asked me 
that same question again, father, and I said ' Yes.' It's to 
be — soon. We're going to live at Four Forks, in his own 
house, and next winter we're going to Sacramento. I sup- 
pose it's all right, father, eh ? " She emphasised the question 
with a slight kick through the bed-clothes as the parental 
M'Closky had fallen into an abstract reverie. 

"Yes, surely," said Mr. M'Closky, recovering himself 
with some confusion. After a pause he looked down at the 



The Rose of Tuolumne. 141 

bed-clothes, and, patting them tenderly, continued. "You 
couldn't have done better, Jinny. They isn't a girl in Tuo- 
lumne ez could strike it ez rich ez you hev — even if they got 
the chance." He paused again and then said, ''Jinny?" 

"Yes, father." 

" You'se in bed and ondressed ? " 

"Yes." 

"You couldn't," said Mr. M'Closky, glancing hopelessly 
at the two chairs and slowly rubbing his chin — " you 
couldn't dress yourself again, could yer ? " 

"Why, father?" 

" Kinder get yourself into them things again ? " he added 
hastily. " Not all of 'em, you know, but some of 'em. Not 
if I helped you? — sorter stood by and lent a hand now and 
then with a strap or a buckle, or a necktie or a shoe-string," 
he continued, still looking at the chairs, and evidently trying 
to boldly familiarise himself with their contents. 

"Are you crazy, father?" demanded Jinny, suddenly 
sitting up with a portentous switch of her yellow mane. 
Mr. M'Closky rubbed one side of his beard, which already 
had the appearance of having been quite worn away by that 
process, and faintly dodged the question. 

"Jinny," he said, tenderly stroking the bed-clothes as he 
spoke, "this yer's what's the matter. Thar is a stranger 
downstairs — a stranger to you, lovey, but a man ez I've 
knowed a long time. He's been here about an hour, and 
he'll be here ontil fower o'clock, when the up stage passes. 
Now I wants ye. Jinny, dear, to get up and come downstairs 
and kinder help me pass the time with him. It's no use, 
Jinny," he went on, gently raising his hand to deprecate any 
interruption — " it's no use, he won't go to bed ! He won't 
play keerds ; whisky don't take no effect on him. Ever 
since I knowed him he was the most onsatisfactory critter 
to hev round " 



142 The Rose of Ttwlumne. 

**What do you have him round for, then?" interrupted 
Miss Jinny sharply. 

Mr. M'Closky's eyes fell. " Ef he hedn't kem out of his 
way to-night to do me a good turn, I wouldn't ask ye, Jinny. 
I wouldn't, so help me ! But I thought ez I couldn't do 
anything with him, you might come down and sorter fetch 
him, Jinny, as you did the others." 

Miss Jinny shrugged her pretty shoulders. 

" Is he old or young ? " 

" He's young enough, Jinny, but he knows a power of 
things." 

"What does he do?" 

" Not much, I reckon. He's got money in the mill at 
Four Forks. He travels round a good deal. I've heard, 
Jinny, that he's a poet — writes them rhymes, you know." 
Mr. M'Closky here appealed submissively, but directly, to 
his daughter. He remembered that she had frequently been 
in receipt of printed elegiac couplets known as " mottoes," 
containing enclosures equally saccharine. 

Miss Jenny slightly curled her pretty lip. She had that 
fine contempt for the illusions of fancy which belongs to the 
perfectly healthy young animal. 

"Not," continued Mr. M'Closky, rubbing his head re- 
flectively, " not ez I'd advise ye. Jinny, to say anything to 
him about poetry. It ain't twenty minutes ago ez /did. 
I set the whisky afore him in the parlour. I wound up the 
music-box and set it goin'. Then I sez to him, sociable-like 
and free, ' Jest consider yourself in your own house and repeat 
what you allow to be your finest production,' and he raged. 
That man, Jinny, jest raged. Thar's no end of the names 
he called me. You see, Jinny," continued Mr. M'Closky 
apologetically, "he's known me a long time." 

But his daughter had already dismissed the question with 
her usual directness. "I'll be down in a few moments. 



The Rose of Tttolinnne. 1 4 3 

father/' she said after a pause, " but don't say anything to 
him about it — don't say I was abed." 

Mr. M'Closky's face beamed. " You was allers a good 
girl, Jinny," he said, dropping on one knee the better to 
imprint a respectful kiss on her forehead. But Jinny caught 
him by the wrists and for a moment held "him captive. 
" Father," said she, trying to fix his shy eyes with the clear, 
steady glance of her own, " all the girls that were there to- 
night had some one with them. Mame Robinson had her 
aunt, Lucy Ranee had her mother, Kate Pierson had her 
sister — all except me had some other woman. Father, dear," 
her lip trembled just a little, " I wish mother hadn't died 
when I was so small. I wish there was some other woman 
in the family besides me. I ain't lonely with you, father, 
dear ; but if there was only some one, you know, when the 
time comes for John and me " 

Her voice here suddenly gave out, but not her brave eyes, 
that were still fixed earnestly upon his face. Mr. M'Closky, 
apparently tracing out a pattern on the bed-quilt, essayed 
words of comfort. 

" There ain't one of them gals ez you've named, Jinny, 
ez could do what you've done with a whole Noah's ark of 
relations at their backs ! Thar ain't one ez wouldn't sacrifice 
her nearest relation to make the strike that you hev. Ez to 
mothers, maybe, my dear, you're doin' better without one." 
He rose suddenly, and walked toward the door. When he 
reached it he turned, and, in his old deprecating manner, 
said, " Don't be long, Jinny," smiled, and vanished from 
the head downward, his canvas slippers asserting themselves 
resolutely to the last. 

When Mr. M'Closky reached his parlour again his trouble- 
some guest was not there. The decanter stood on the table 
untouched, three or four books lay upon the floor, a number 
of photographic views of the Sierras were scattered over 



1 44 The Rose of Tuolumne, 

the sofa; two sofa pillows, a newspaper, and a Mexican 
blanket lay on the carpet, as if the late occupant of the room 
had tried to read in a recumbent position. A French 
window, opening upon a veranda, which never before in the 
history of the house had been unfastened, now betrayed by 
its waving lace curtain the way that the fugitive had escaped. 
Mr. M'Closky heaved a sigh of despair \ he looked at the 
gorgeous carpet purchased in Sacramento at a fabulous 
price, at the crimson satin and rosewood furniture unparal- 
leled in the history of Tuolumne, at the massively-framed 
pictures on the walls, and looked beyond it, through the 
open window, to the reckless man who, fleeing these sybaritic 
allurements, was smoking a cigar upon the moonlit road. 
This room, which had so often awed the youth of Tuolumne 
into filial respect, was evidently a failure. It remained to 
be seen if the Rose herself had lost her fragrance. " I 
reckon Jinny will fetch him yet," said Mr. M'Closky, with 
parental faith. 

He stepped from the window upon the veranda. But he 
had scarcely done this before his figure was detected by 
the stranger, who at once crossed the road. When within a 
few feet of M'Closky he stopped. "You persistent old 
plantigrade," he said in a low voice, audible only to the 
person addressed, and a face full of affected anxiety, " why 
don't you go to bed ? Didn't I tell you to go and leave me 
here alone ? In the name of all that's idiotic and imbecile, 
why do you continue to shuffle about here ? Or are you 
trying to drive me crazy with your presence, as you have 
with that wretched music-box that I've just dropped under 
yonder tree ? It's an hour and a half yet before the stage 
pctsses j do you think, do you imagine for a single moment, 
that I can tolerate you until then — eh? Why don't you 
speak ? Are you asleep ? You don't mean to say that you 
have the audacity to add somnambulism to your other 



The Rose of Tuolumne, 145 

weaknesses ; you're not low enough to repeat yourself under 
any such weak pretext as that — eh ? " 

A fit of nervous coughing ended this extraordinary exor- 
dium, and half sitting, half leaning against the veranda, 
Mr. M'Closky's guest turned his face, and part of a slight, 
elegant figure, towards his host. The lower portion of this 
upturned face wore an habitual expression of fastidious dis- 
content, with an occasional line of physical suffering. But 
the brow above was frank and critical, and a pair of dark 
mirthful eyes sat in playful judgment over the supersensitive 
mouth and its suggestion. 

" I allowed to go to bed. Ridge way," said Mr. M'Closky 
meekly, " but my girl Jinny's jist got back from a little tear 
up at Robinson's, and ain't incUned to turn in yet. You 
know what girls is. So I thought we three would jist have 
a social chat together to pass away the time." 

" You mendacious old hypocrite ! she got back an hour 
ago," said Ridgeway, "as that savage-looking escort of hers, 
who has been haunting the house ever since, can testify. 
My belief is, that, like an enterprising idiot as you are, 
you've dragged that girl out of her bed that we might 
mutually bore each other." 

Mr. M'Closky was too much stunned by this evidence of 
Ridgeway's apparently superhuman penetration to reply. 
After enjoying his host's confusion for a moment with his 
eyes, Ridgeway's mouth asked grimly — 

" And who is this girl, anyway ? " 

*' Nancy's." 

" Your wife's ? " 

"Yes. But look yar, Ridgeway," said M'Closky, laying 
one hand imploringly on Ridgeway's sleeve, " not a word 
about her to Jinny. She thinks her mother's dead — died in 
Missouri. Eh ! " 

Ridgeway nearly rolled from the veranda in an excess ox 

VOL. III. K 



146 The Rose of Tuolu^nne. 

rage. " Good God ! Do you mean to say that you have 
been concealing from her a fact that any day, any moment, 
may come to her ears ? That youVe been letting her grow 
up in ignorance of something that by this time she might 
have outgrown and forgotten ? That you have been, like a 
besotted old ass, all these years slowly forging a thunder- 
bolt that any one may crush her with ? That " but 

here Ridgeway's cough took possession of his voice, and even 
put a moisture into his dark eyes, as he looked at M'Closky's 
aimless hand feebly employed upon his beard. 

"But," said M'Closky, "look how she's done. She's 
held her head as high as any of 'em. She's to be married 
in a month to the richest man in the county, and," he added 
cunningly, " Jack Ashe ain't the kind o' man to sit by and 
hear anything said of his wife or her relations, you bet. 
But hush — that's her foot on the stairs. She's cummin'." 

She came. I don't think the French window ever held a 
finer view than when she put aside the curtains and stepped 
out. She had dressed herself simply and hurriedly, but with 
a woman's knowledge of her best points, so that you get 
the long curves of her shapely limbs, the shorter curves 
of her round waist and shoulders, the long_ sweep of 
her yellow braids, the light of her gray eyes, and even the 
delicate rose of her complexion, without knowing how 
it was delivered to you. 

The introduction by Mr. M'Closky was brief. When 
Ridgeway had got over the fact that it was two o'clock in 
the morning, and that the cheek of this Tuolumne goddess 
nearest him was as dewy and fresh as an infant's — that she 
looked like Marguerite, without probably ever having heard 
of Goethe's heroine, he talked, I daresay, very sensibly. 
When Miss Jinny, who from her childliood had been brought 
up among the sons of Anak, and who was accustomed 
to have the supremacy of our noble sex presented to her 



The Rose of Tuolumne. 147 

as a physical fact, found herself in the presence of a new 
and strange power in the slight and elegant figure beside 
her, she was at first frightened and cold. But finding that 
this power, against which the weapons of her own physical 
charms were of no avail, was a kindly one, albeit general, 
she fell to worshipping it, after the fashion of woman, and 
casting before it the fetiches and other idols of her youth. 
She even confessed to it. So that in half an hour Ridge- 
way was in possession of all the facts connected with her 
life, and a great many, I fear, of her fancies — except one. 
When Mr. M'Closky found the young people thus amicably 
disposed, he calmly went to sleep. 

It was a pleasant time to each. To Miss Jinny it had 
the charm of novelty, and she abandoned herself to it for 
that reason much more freely and innocently than her com- 
panion, who knew something more of the inevitable logic 
of the position. I do not think, however, he had any 
intention of love-making. I do not think he was at all 
conscious of being in the attitude. I am quite positive 
he would have shrunk from the suggestion of disloyalty 
to the one woman whom he admitted to himself he 
loved. But, like most poets, he was much more true to an 
idea than a fact, and, having a very lofty conception of 
womanhood, with a very sanguine nature, he saw in each new 
face the possibilities of a realisation of his ideal. It was, 
perhaps, an unfortunate thing for the women, particularly 
as he brought to each trial a surprising freshness which was 
very deceptive, and quite distinct from the blase familiarity 
of the man of gallantry. It was this perennial virginity of 
the affections that most endeared him to the best women, 
who were prone to exercise towards him a chivalrous pro- 
tection — as of one likely to go astray unless looked after — 
and indulged in the dangerous combination of sentiment 
with the highest maternal instincts. It was this quality 



148 The Rose of Ttcolumne, 

which caused Jinny to recognise in him a certain boyishness 
that required her womanly care, and even induced her to 
offer to accompany him to the cross-roads when the time 
of his departure arrived. With her superior knowledge of 
woodcraft and the locality, she would have kept him from 
being lost. I wot not but that she would have protected 
him from bears or wolves, but chiefly, I think, from the 
feline fascinations of Mame Robinson and Lucy Ranee, 
who might be lying in wait for this tender young poet. Nor 
did she cease to be thankful that Providence had, so to 
speak, delivered him as a trust into her hands. 

It was a lovely night. The moon swung low and 
languished softly on the snowy ridge beyond. There were 
quaint odours in the still air, and a strange incense from the 
woods perfumed their young blood and seemed to swoon 
in their pulses. Small wonder that they lingered on the 
white road, that their feet climbed unwillingly the little hill 
where they were to part, and that when they at last reached 
it, even the saving grace of speech seemed to have forsaken 
them. 

For there they stood, alone. There was no sound nor 
motion in earth, or woods, or heaven. They might have 
been the one man and woman for whom this goodly earth 
that lay at their feet, rimmed wuth the deepest azure, was 
created. And seeing this, they turned towards each other 
with a sudden instinct, and their hands met, and then their 
lips in one long kiss. 

And then out of the mysterious distance came the sound 
of voices and the sharp clatter of hoofs and wheels, and 
Jinny slid away — a white moonbeam — from the hill. For 
a moment she glimmered through the trees, and then, 
reaching the house, passed her sleeping father on the 
veranda, and, darting into her bedroom, locked the door, 
threw open the window, and, falling on her knees beside it, 



The Rose of Tuolumne. 149 

leaned her hot cheeks upon her hands and listened. In a 
few moments she was rewarded by the sharp clatter of hoofs 
on the stony road, but it was only a horseman, whose dark 
figure was swiftly lost in the shadows of the lower road. 
At another time she might have recognised the man, but 
her eyes and ears were now all intent on something else. 
It came presently, with dancing lights, a musical rattle of 
harness, a cadence of hoof-beats, that set her heart to 
beating in unison, and was gone. A sudden sense of 
loneliness came over her, and tears gathered in her 
sweet eyes. 

She arose and looked around her. There was the little 
bed, the dressing-table, the roses that she had worn last 
night, still fresh and blooming in the little vase. Every- 
thing was there, but everything looked strange ; the roses 
should have been withered, for the party seemed so long 
ago ; she could hardly remember when she had worn this 
dress that lay upon the chair. So she came back to the 
window and sank down beside it, with her cheek, a trifle 
paler, leaning on her hand, and her long braids reaching to 
the floor. The stars paled slowly, like her cheek, yet with 
eyes that saw not she still looked from her window for the 
coming dawn. 

It came, with violet deepening into purple, with purple 
flushing into rose, with rose shining into silver and glowing 
into gold. The straggling line of black picket-fence below, 
that had faded away with the stars, came back with the sun. 
What was that object moving by the fence ? Jinny raised 
her head and looked intently. It was a man endeavouring 
to climb the pickets, and falling backward with each attempt. 
Suddenly she started to her feet, as if the rosy flushes of the 
dawn had crimsoned her from forehead to shoulders ; then 
she stood, white as the wall, with her hands clasped upon 
her bosom. Then, with a single bound she reached the 



150 The Rose oj Tuolumne. 

door, and, with flying braids and fluttering skirt, sprang 
down the stairs and out in the garden walk. When within 
a few feet of the fence she uttered a cry — the first she had 
given — the cry of a mother over her stricken babe, of a 
tigress over her mangled cub, and in another moment she 
had leaped the fence and knelt beside Ridgeway, with his 
fainting head upon her breast. 

" My boy — my poor, poor boy ! who has done this ? " 

Who, indeed ? His clothes were covered with dust, his 
waistcoat was torn open; and his handkerchief, wet with 
the blood it could not stanch, fell from a cruel stab beneath 
his shoulder. 

" Ridgeway ! — my poor boy — tell me what has hap- 
pened." 

Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy, blue-veined lids 
and gazed upon her. Presently a gleam of mischief came 
into his dark eyes, a smile stole over his lips as he whispered 
slowly — 

" It — was — your kiss — did it — Jinny, dear ! I had for- 
gotten — how high priced — the article was here. Never 
mind, Jinny ! " — he feebly raised her hand to his white 
lips — " it was — worth it," and fainted away. 

Jinny started to her feet and looked wildly around her. 
Then, with a sudden resolution, she stooped over the insen- 
sible man, and, with one strong effort, lifted him in her arms 
as if he had been a child. When her father, a moment 
later, rubbed his eyes and awoke from his sleep upon the 
veranda, it was to see a goddess, erect and triumphant, 
striding toward the house, with the helpless body of a man 
lying across that breast where man had never lain before — 
a goddess at whose imperious mandate he arose and cast 
open the doors before her. And then when she had laid 
her unconscious burden on the sofa, the goddess fled, and 
a woman, helpless and trembling, stood before him. A 



The Rose of Tuolumne, 151 

woman that cried out that she had " killed him "—that she 
was "wicked ! wicked !" and that, even saying so, staggered 
and fell beside her late burden. And all that Mr. M'Closky 
could do was to feebly rub his beard, and say to him^ 
self, vaguely and incoherently, that "Jinny had fetched 
him." 



( 152 ) 



CHAPTER 11. 

Before noon the next day it was generally believed through- 
out Four Forks that Ridgeway Dent had been attacked and 
wounded at Chemisal Ridge by a highwayman, who fled on 
the approach of the Wingdam coach. It is to be presumed 
that this statement met with Ridgeway's approval, as he did 
not contradict it, nor supplement it with any details. His 
wound was severe, but not dangerous. After the first excite- 
ment had subsided, there was, I think, a prevailing impres- 
sion, common to the provincial mind, that his misfortune 
was the result of the defective moral quality of his being a 
stranger, and was in a vague sort of a way a warning to 
others and a lesson to him. " Did you hear how that San 
Francisco feller was took down the other night ? " was the 
average tone of introductory remark. Indeed, there was a 
general suggestion that Ridgeway's presence was one that 
no self-respecting, high-minded highwayman, honourably 
conservative of the best interests of Tuolumne County, 
could for a moment tolerate. 

Except for the few words spoken on that eventful morning, 
Ridgeway was reticent of the past. When Jinny strove to 
gather some details of the affray that might offer a clue to 
his unknown assailant, a subtle twinkle in his brown eyes 
was the only response. When Mr. M'Closky attempted the 
same process, the young gentleman threw abusive epithets, 
and eventually slippers, teaspoons, and other lighter articles 
within the reach of an invalid, at the head of his questioner. 



The Rose of Tuolumne. 1 5 3 

*'l think he's coming round, Jinny," said Mr. Jyl'Closky, 
"he laid for me this morning with a candlestick." 

It was about this time that Miss Jinny, having sworn her 
father to secrecy regarding the manner in which Ridgeway 
had been carried into the house, conceived the idea of 
addressing the young man as ''Mr. Dent," and of apologis- 
ing for intruding whenever she entered the room in the 
discharge of her household duties. It was about this lime 
that she became more rigidly conscientious to those duties, 
and less general in her attentions ; it was at this time that 
the quality of the invalid's diet improved, and that she con- 
sulted him less frequently about it. It was about this time 
that she began to see more company, that the house was 
greatly frequented by her former admirers, w^ith whom she 
rode, walked, and danced. It was at about this time, also, 
and when Ridgeway w^as able to be brought out on the 
veranda in a chair, that, with great archness of manner, she 
introduced to him Miss Lucy Ashe, the sister of her betrothed 
— a flashing brunette and terrible heart-breaker of Four 
Forks. And in the midst of this gaiety she concluded that 
she would spend a \veek with the Robinsons, to whom she 
owed a visit. She enjoyed herself greatly there, so much, 
indeed, that she became quite hollow-eyed, the result, as she 
explained to her father, of a too frequent indulgence in 
festivity. "You see, father, I won't have many chances 
after John and I are married — you know how queer he is — 
and I must make the most of my time," and she laughed an 
odd little laugh, which had lately become habitual to her. 
"And how is Mr. Dent getting on?" Her father replied 
that he was getting on very well indeed, so well, in fact, 
that he was able to leave for San Francisco two days ago. 
" He wanted to be remembered to you. Jinny— 'remembered 
kindly,' — yes, they is the very words he used,'' said Mr. 
M'Closky, looking down and consulting one of his large 



154 1^^^ Rose of Tuolumne . 

shoes for corroboration. Miss Jinny was glad to hear that 
he was so much better. Miss Jinny could not imagine 
anything that pleased her more than to know that he was so 
strong as to be able to rejoin his friends again, who must 
love him so much and be so anxious about him. Her father 
thought she would be pleased, and now that he was gone 
there was really no necessity for her to hurry back. Miss 
Jinny, in a high, metallic voice, did not know that she had 
expressed any desire to stay — still if her presence had be- 
come distasteful at home — if her own father was desirous of 
getting rid of her — if, when she was so soon to leave his roof 
for ever, he still begrudged her those few days remaining — 

if " My God, Jinny, so help me !" said Mr. M'Closky, 

clutching despairingly at his beard, *' I didn't go for to say 
anything of the kind. I thought that you " 

" Never mind, father," interrupted Jinny magnanimously, 
" you misunderstood me ; of course you did, you couldn't 
help it — you're a Man ! " Mr. M'Closky, sorely crushed, 
would have vaguely protested, but his daughter, having 
relieved herself, after the manner of her sex, with a mental 
personal application of an abstract statement, forgave him 
with a kiss. 

Nevertheless, for two or three days after her return, Mr. 
M'Closky followed his daughter about the house with yearn- 
ing eyes, and occasionally with timid, diffident feet. Some- 
times he came upon her suddenly at her household tasks 
with an excuse so palpably false, and a careless manner so 
outrageously studied, that she was fain to be embarrassed 
for him. Later he took to rambling about the house at 
night, and was often seen noiselessly passing and repassing 
through the hall after she had retired. On one occasion he 
was surprised first by sleep and then by the early-rising 
Jinny as he lay on the rug outside her chamber door. 
" You treat me like a child, father," said Jinny. " I thought, 



The Rose of Tuolumne, 155 

Jinny," said the father apologetically — '' I thought I heard 
sounds as if you was takin' on inside, and listenin' I fell 
asleep." "You dear, old, simple-minded baby," said Jinny, 
looking past her father's eyes, and lifting his grizzled locks 
one by one with meditative fingers, " what should I be takin' 
on for ? Look how much taller I am than you," she said, 
suddenly lifting herself up to the extreme of her superb 
figure. Then rubbing his head rapidly with both hands, as 
if she were anointing his hair with some rare unguent, she 
patted him on the back and returned to her room. The 
result of this and one or two other equally sympathetic 
interviews was to produce a change in Mr. M'Closky's 
manner, which was, if possible, still more discomposing. 
He grew unjustifiably hilarious, cracked jokes with the ser- 
vants, and repeated to Jinny humorous stories, with the 
attitude of facetiousness carefully preserved throughout the 
entire narration, and the point utterly ignored and forgotten. 
Certain incidents reminded him of funny things, which 
invariably turned out to have not the slightest relevancy or 
application. He occasionally brought home with him prac- 
tical humorists, with a sanguine hope of setting them going, 
like the music-box, for his daughter's edification. He essayed 
the singing of melodies with great freedom of style and 
singular limitation of note. He sang " Come, Haste to the 
Wedding, ye Lasses and Maidens," of which he knew a 
single line, and that incorrectly, as being peculiarly apt and 
appropriate. Yet away from the house and his daughter's 
presence he was silent and distraught. His absence of 
mind was particularly noted by his workmen at the " Empire 
Quartz Mill." " Ef the old man don't look out and wake 
up," said his foreman, " he'll hev them feet of his yet under 
the stamps. When he ain't givin' his mind to 'em, they is 
altogether too promiskuss." 

A few nights later, Miss Jinny recognised her father's 



156 The Rose of Tuolumne. 

hand in a timid tap at the door. She opened it, and he 
stood before her, with a valise in his hand, equipped as for 
a journey. " I takes the stage to-night, Jinny, dear, from 
Four Forks to 'Frisco. Maybe I may drop in on Jack afore 
I go. I'll be back in a week. Good-bye." 

" Good-bye." • He still held her hand. Presently he drew 
her back into the room, closing the door carefully, and 
glancing around. There was a look of profound cunning 
in his eye as he said slowly — 

**Bear up and keep dark. Jinny, dear, and trust to the 
old man. Various men has various ways. Thar is ways 
as is common and ways as is oncommon, ways as is easy 
and ways as is oneasy. Bear up and keep dark." With 
this Delphic utterance he put his finger to his lips and 
vanished. 

It was ten o'clock when he reached Four Forks. A few 
minutes later he stood on the threshold of that dwelling 
described by the Four Forks "Sentinel" as " the palatial resi- 
dence of John Ashe," and known to the local satirist as the 
*' ash-box." "Hevin' to lay by two hours, John," he said 
to his prospective son-in-law, as he took his hand at the 
door, " a few words of social converse, not on business, but 
strictly private, seems to be about as nat'ral a thing as a 
man can do." This introduction, evidently the result of 
some study and plainly committed to memory, seemed so 
satisfactory to Mr. M'Closky that he repeated it again, after 
John Ashe had led him into his private office, where, 
depositing his valise in the middle of the floor, and sitting 
down before it, he began carefully to avoid the eye of his 
host. John Ashe, a tall, dark, handsome Kentuckian — with 
whom even the trifles of life were evidently full of serious 
import — waited with a kind of chivalrous respect the further 
speech of his guest. Being utterly devoid of any sense of 
the ridiculous, he always accepted Mr. M'Closky as a grave 



The Rose of Ttcolumne. 1 5 7 

fact, singular only from his own want of experience of the 
class. 

" Ores is running light now," said Mr. M'Closky, with 
easy indifference. 

John Ashe returned that he had noticed the same fact in 
the receipts of the mill at Four Forks. 

Mr. M'Closky rubbed his beard and looked at his valise, 
as if for sympathy and suggestion. 

"You don't reckon on having any trouble with any of 
them chaps ez you cut out with Jinny? " 

John Ashe, rather haughtily, had never thought of that. 
*' I saw Ranee hanging round your house the other night 
when I took your daughter home, but he gave me a wide 
berth," he added carelessly. 

"Surely," said Mr. M'Closky, with a peculiar winking of 
the eye. After a pause, he took a fresh departure from his 
valise. 

"A few words, John, ez between man and man, ez 
between my daughter's father and her husband who expects 
to be, is about the thing, I take it, as is fair and square. I 
kem here to say them. They're about Jinny, my gal." 

Ashe's grave face brightened, to Mr. M'Closky's evident 
discomposure. 

" Maybe I should have said, about her mother ; but the 
same bein' a stranger to you, I says, nat'rally, 'Jinny.'" 

Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. M'Closky, with his eyes 
on his valise, went on — 

" It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs. M'Closky in 
the State of Missouri. She let on, at the time, to be a wid- 
der — a widder with one child. When I say let on, I mean 
to imply that I subsequently found out that she was not a 
widder, nor a wife, and the father of the child was, so to 
speak, onbeknowst. Thet child was Jinny — my gal." 

With his eyes on his valise, and quietly ignoring the 



158 The Rose of Tuolumne. 

wholly-crimsoned face and swiftly-darkening brow of his host, 
he continued — 

" Many little things sorter tended to make our home in 
Missouri onpleasant. A disposition to smash furniture and 
heave knives around, an inclination to howl when drunk, 
and that frequent ; a habitooal use of vulgar language, and 
a tendency to cuss the casooal visitor, seemed to pint," 
added Mr. M'Closky with submissive hesitation — "thet — 
she — was — so to speak — quite onsuited to the marriage 
relation in its holiest aspeck." 

" Damnation ! Why didn't " burst out John Ashe, 

erect and furious. 

"At the end of two year," continued Mr. M'Closky, 
still intent on the valise, " I allowed I'd get a diworce. Et 
about thet time, however. Providence sends a circus into 
thet town and a feller ez rode three bosses to onct. Hevin' 
allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town with this feller, 
leavin' me and Jinny behind. I sent word to her thet if 
she would give Jinny to me we'd call it quits. And she 
did." 

" Tell me," gasped Ashe, " did you ask your daughter to 
keep this from me, or did she do it of her own accord ? " 

" She doesn't know it," said Mr. M'Closky ; " she thinks 
I'm her father, and that her mother's dead." 

" Then, sir, this is your " 

*' I don't know," said Mr. M'Closky slowly, " ez I've 
asked any one to marry my Jinny. I don't know ez I've 
persood that ez a biziness, or even taken it up as a health- 
ful recreation." 

John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr. M'Closky's 
eyes left the valise and followed him curiously. " Where 
is this woman?" demanded Ashe suddenly. M'Closky's 
eyes sought the valise again^ 

" She went to Kansas ; from Kansas she went into 



The Rose of Tuoluimie. 1 59 

Texas. From Texas she eventooally came to Californy. 
Being here, I've purvided her with money — when her 
business was slack — through a friend." 

John Ashe groaned. " She's gettin' rather old and shaky 
for hosses, and now does the tight-rope business and flying 
trapeze. Never hevin' seen her perform," continued Mr. 
M'Closky, with conscientious caution, " I can't say how she 
gets on. On the bills she looks well. Thar is a poster," 
said Mr. M'Closky, glancing at Ashe, and opening his 
valise, — " thar is a poster givin' her performance at Marys- 
ville next month." Mr. M'Closky slowly unfolded a large 
yellow and blue printed poster, profusely illustrated. " She 
calls herself ' Mam'selle J. Miglawski — the great Russian 
Trapeziste.' " 

John Ashe tore it from his hand. " Of course," he said, 
suddenly facing Mr. M'Closky, " you don't expect me to 
go on with this ? " 

Mr. M'Closky picked up the poster, carefully refolded it 
and returned it to his valise. " When you break off with 
Jinny," he said quietly, " I don't want anything said 'bout 
this. She doesn't know it. She's a woman, and I reckon 
you're a white man." 

" But what am I to say ? How am I to go back of my 
word?" 

"Write her a note. Say something hez come to your 
knowledge — don't say what — that makes you break it off. 
You needn't be afeard Jinny'll ever ask you what." 

John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been cruelly 
wronged. No gentleman — no Ashe — could go on further 
in this affair. It was preposterous to think of it. But some- 
how he felt at the moment very unlike a gentleman or an 
Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down under 
Jinny's steady eyes. But then — he could write to her. 

*' So ores is about as light here as on the Ridge. Well, 



] 6o The Rose of TtwlMinne. 

I reckon they'll come up before the rains. Good night." 
Mr. M'Closky took the hand that his host mechanically 
extended, shook it gravely, and was gone. 

When Mr. M-Closky, a week later, stepped again upon 
his own veranda, he saw through the French window the 
figure of a man in his parlour. Under his hospitable roof 
the sight was not unusual, but for an instant a subtle sense 
of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw it was not the 
face of Ashe turned toward him he was relieved, but when 
he saw the tawny beard and quick, passionate eyes of Henry 
Ranee he felt a new sense of apprehension, sc5 that he fell 
to rubbing his beard almost upon his very threshold. 

Jinny ran into the hall, and seized her father with a little 
cry of joy. "Father," said Jinny, in a hurried whisper, 
"don't mind him^^ — indicating Ranee with a toss of her 
yellow braids — "he's going soon, and I think, father, I've 
done him wrong. But it's all over with John and me now ; 
read that note, and see how he's insulted me." Her Hp 
quivered, but she went on : " It's Ridgeway that he means, 
father, and I believe it was his hand struck Ridgeway down, 
or that he knows who did.' But hush, now; not a word." 

She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back into the 
parlour, leaving Mr. M'Closky perplexed and irresolute with 
the note in his hand. He glanced at it hurriedly and saw 
that it was couched in almost the very words he had sug- 
gested. But a sudden apprehensive recollection came over 
him; he listened, and with an exclamation of dismay he 
seized his hat and ran out of the house. But too late ; at 
the same moment a quick, nervous footstep was heard upon 
the veranda, the French window flew open, and with a light 
laugh of greeting Ridgeway stepped into the room. 

Jinny's finer ear first caught the step, Jinny's swifter feel- 
ings had sounded the depths of hope, of joy, of despair 
before he entered the room. Jinny's pale face was the 



The Rose of Tuolumne . 1 6 1 

only one that met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, Avhen 
he stood before them. An angry flush suffused even the 
pink roots of Ranee's beard as he rose to his feet ; an omi- 
nous fire sprang into Ridgeway's eyes, and a spasm of hate 
and scorn passed over the lower part of his face and left 
the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid. 

Yet he was the first to speak. *' I owe you an apology," 
he said to Jinny, with a suave scorn that brought the indig- 
nant blood back to her cheek, ''for this intrusion, but I ask 
no pardon for withdrawing from the only spot where that 
man dare confront me with safety." 

With an exclamation of rage. Ranee sprang toward him. 
But as quickly Jinny stood between them, erect and menac- 
ing. "There must be no quarrel here," she said to Ranee. 
" While I protect your right as my guest, don't oblige me 
to remind you of mine as your hostess." She turned with 
a half-deprecatory air to Ridgeway, but he was gone. So 
was her father. Only Ranee remained, with a look of ill- 
concealed triumph on his face. 

Without looking at him she passed toward the door. 
When she reached it she turned. " You asked me a question 
an hour ago. Come to me in the garden at nine o'clock 
to-night and I will answer you. But promise me first to 
keep away from Mr. Dent ; give me your word not to seek 
him — to avoid him if he seeks you. Do you promise? 
It is well." 

He would have taken her hand, but she waved him away. 
In another moment he heard the swift rustle of her dress 
in the hall, the sound of her feet upon the stair, the sharp 
closing of her bedroom door, and all was quiet. 

And even thus quietly the day wore away, and the night 
rose slowly from the valley and overshadowed the mountains 
with purple wings that fanned the still air into a breeze, until 
the moon followed it and lulled everything to rest as with 

VOL. III. 1. 



1 62 The Rose of Tuolumne. 

the laying on of white and benedictory hands. It was a 
lovely night, but Henry Ranee, waiting impatiently beneath 
a sycamore at the foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth 
or air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a jealous 
nature, a vague superstition of the spot, filled his mind with 
distrust and doubt. " If this should be a trick to keep my 
hands off that insolent pup ! " he muttered, but even as the 
thought passed "his tongue, a white figure slid from the shrub- 
bery near the house, gUded along the line of picket fence, 
and then stopped, midway, motionless in the moonlight. 

It was she. But he scarcely recognised her in the white 
drapery that covered her head and shoulders and breast. 
He approached her with a hurried whisper. " Let us with- 
draw from the moonlight. Everybody can see us here." 

" We have nothing to say that cannot be said in the moon- 
light, Henry Ranee," she replied, coldly receding from his 
proffered hand. She trembled for a moment, as if with a 
chill, and then suddenly turned upon him : *' Hold up 
your head, and let me look at you ! I've known only what 
men are ; let me see what a traitor looks like ! " 

He recoiled more from her wild face than her words. 
He saw for the first time that her hollow cheeks and hollow 
eyes were blazing with fever. He was no coward, but he 
would have fled. 

"You are ill, Jinny," he said; "you had best return to 
the house. Another time " 

" Stop ! " she cried hoarsely ; " move from this spot, and 
I'll call for help ! Attempt to leave me now, and I'll pro- 
claim you the assassin that you are ! " 

"It was a fair fight," he said doggedly. 

"Was it a fair fight to creep behind an unarmed and 
unsuspecting man? Was it a fair fight to try to throw 
suspicion on some one else ? Was it a fair fight to deceive 
me .'* Liar and coward that you are ! " 



The Rose of Tuohcmne. 163 

He made a stealthy step toward her with evil eyes, and 
a wickeder hand that crept within his breast. She saw the 
motion, but it only stung her to newer fury. 

" Strike ! " she said, with blazing eyes, throwing her hands 
open before him. '' Strike ! Are you afraid of the woman 
who dares you? or do you keep your knife for the backs of 
unsuspecting men ? Strike ! I tell you ! No ? Look then ! " 
With a sudden movement she tore from her head and 
shoulders the thick lace shawl that had concealed her figure 
and stood before him. *' Look ! " she cried passionately, 
pointing to the bosom and shoulders of her white dress, 
darkly streaked with faded stains and ominous discolouration. 
" Look ! This is the dress I wore that morning when I 
found him lying here — here — bleeding from your cowardly 
knife. Look ! Do you see ? This is his blood — my darling 
boy's blood ! — one drop of which, dead and faded as it is, is 
more precious to me than the whole living pulse of any 
other man ! Look ! I come to you to-night christened with 
his blood and dare you to strike — dare you to strike him 
again through me and mingle my blood with his ! Strike, I 
implore you ! Strike ! if you have any pity on me — for God's 
sake ! Strike ! if you are a man ! Look ! Here lay his 
head on my shoulder ; here I held him to my breast, where 
never — so help me my God ! — another man Ah ! " 

She reeled against the fence, and something that had 
flashed in Ranee's hand dropped at her feet ; for another 
flash and report rolled him over in the dust, and across his 
writhing body two men strode and caught her ere she fell. 

"She has only fainted," said Mr. M'Closky. "Jinny, 
dear, my girl, speak to me ! " 

" What is this on her dress ? " said Ridgeway, kneeling 
beside her, and lifting his set and colourless face. At the 
sound of his voice the colour came faintly back to her cheek ; 
she opened her eyes and smiled. 



1 64 The Rose of TtcolM7n7ie. 

" It's only your blood, dear boy," she said ; " but look a 
little deeper and you'll find my own." 

She put up her two yearning hands and drew his face 
and lips down to her own. When Ridgeway raised his head 
again her eyes were closed, but her mouth still smiled as 
with the memory of a kiss. 

They bore her to the house still breathing but uncon- 
scious. That night the road was filled with clattering 
horsemen, and the summoned skill of the country side for 
leagues away gathered at her couch. The wound, they said, 
was not essentially dangerous, but they had grave fears of 
the shock to a system that already seemed suffering from 
some strange and unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The 
best medical skill of Tuolumne happened to be young and 
observing, and waited patiently an opportunity to account 
for it. He w^as presently rewarded. 

For toward morning she rallied and looked feebly around. 
Then she beckoned her father toward her, and whispered, 
"Where is he?" 

*' They took him away, Jinny, dear, in a cart. He won't 
trouble you agin." He stopped, for Miss Jinny had raised 
herself on her elbow, and was levelling her black brows at 
him. But two kicks from the young surgeon, and a signi- 
ficant motion toward the door, sent Mr. M'Closky away, 
muttering, "How should I know that ^he^ meant Ridgeway?" 
he said apologetically, as he went and returned with the 
young gentleman. The surgeon, who was still holding her 
pulse, smiled, and thought that with a Httle care — and at- 
tention — the stimulants — might be — diminished — and— he 
— might leave — the patient for some hours, with perfect 
safety. He would give further directions to Mr. M'Closky 
— downstairs. 

It was with great archness of manner that half an hour 
later Mr. M'Closky entered the room with a preparatory 



The Rose of Tuolumne. 165 

cough, and it was with some disappointment that he found 
Ridgeway standing quietly by the window, and his daughter 
apparently fallen into a light doze. He was still more 
concerned when, after Ridgeway had retired, noticing a 
pleasant smile playing about her lips, he said softly — 

"You was thinking of some one, Jinny ? " 

"Yes, father " — the gray eyes met his steadily — " of poor 
John Ashe ! " 

Her recovery was swift. Nature, that had seemed to 
stand jealously aloof from her in her mental anguish, was 
kind to the physical hurt of her favourite child. The superb 
physique which had been her charm and her trial, now stood 
her in good stead. The healing balsam of the pine, the balm 
of resinous gums, and the rare medicaments of Sierran alti- 
tudes touched her as it might have touched the wounded 
doe. So that in two weeks she was able to walk about, and 
when at the end of the month Ridgeway returned from a 
flying visit to San Francisco, and jumped from the Wingdam 
coach at four o'clock in the morning, the Rose of Tuolumne, 
with the dewy petals of either cheek fresh as when first un- 
folded to his kiss, confronted him on the road. 

With a common instinct their young feet both climbed 
the little hill now sacred to their thought. When they 
reached its summit they were both, I think, a little disap- 
pointed. There is a fragrance in the unfolding of a passion 
that escapes the perfect flower. Jinny thought the night 
was not as beautiful; Ridgeway, that the long ride had 
blunted his perceptions. But they had the frankness to 
confess it to each other, with the rare delight of such a con- 
fession and the comparison of details which they thought 
each had forgotten. And with this and an occasional pity- 
ing reference to the blank period when they had not known 
each other, hand in hand, they reached the house. 

Mr. M'Closky was awaiting them impatiently upon the 



1 66 The Rose of Tuolumne, 

veranda. When Miss Jinny had slipped upstairs to re- 
place a collar that stood somewhat suspiciously awry, Mr. 
M'Closky drew Ridgeway solemnly aside. He held a large 
theatre poster in one hand, and an open newspaper in the 
other. 

" I alius said," he remarked slowly, with the air of merely 
renewing a suspended conversation, — "I alius said that 
riding three hosses to onct wasn't exactly in her line. It 
would seem that it ain't. From remarks in this yer paper, 
it would appear that she tried it on at Marysville last week, 
and broke her neck." 



( i67 ) 



a £^onte JFlat pagtotal. 

HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 

I THINK we all loved him. Even after he mismanaged the 
affairs of the Amity Ditch Company, we commiserated him, 
although most of us were stockholders and lost heavily. I 
remember that the blacksmith went so far as to say that 
'•them chaps as put that responsibility on the old man 
oughter be lynched." But the blacksmith was not a stock- 
holder, and the expression was looked upon as the excus- 
able extravagance of a large, sympathising nature, that, when 
combined with a powerful frame, was unworthy of notice. 
At least, that was the way they put it. Yet I think there 
was a general feeling of regret that this misfortune would 
interfere with the old man's long-cherished plan of "going 
home." 

Indeed, for the last ten years he had been "going home.' 
He was going home after a six months' sojourn at Monte 
Flat. He was going home after the first rains. He was 
going home when the rains were over. He was going home 
when he had cut the timber on Buckeye Hill, when there 
was pasture on Dow's Flat, when he struck pay-dirt on 
Eureka Hill, when the Amity Company paid its first divi- 
dend, when the election was over, when he had received 
an answer from his wife. And so the years rolled by, the 
spring rains came and went, the woods of Buckeye Hill 
were level with the ground, the pasture on Dow's Flat grew 



1 68 A Monte Flat Pastoral. 

sere and dry, Eureka Hill yielded its pay-dirt and swamped 
its owner, the first dividends of the Amity Company were 
made from the assessments of stockholders, there were new 
county officers at Monte Flat, his wife's answer had changed 
into a persistent question, and still old man Plunkett 
remained. 

It is only fair to say that he had made several distinct 
essays towards going. Five years before he had bidden 
good-bye to Monte Hill with much effusion and hand-shak- 
ing. But he never got any farther than the next town. 
Here he was induced to trade the sorrel colt he was riding 
for a bay mare — a transaction that at once opened to his 
lively fancy a vista of vast and successful future speculation. 
A few days after, Abner Dean of Angel's received a letter 
from him stating that he was going to Visalia to buy horses. 
" I am satisfied," wrote Plunkett, with that elevated rhetoric 
for which his correspondence was remarkable, " I am satis- 
fied that we are at last developing the real resources of 
California. The world will yet look to Dow's Flat as the 
great stock-raising centre. In view of the interests involved I 
have deferred my departure for a month." It was two months 
before he again returned to us, penniless. Six months later 
he was again enabled to start for the Eastern States, and 
this time he got as far as San Francisco. I have before me 
a letter which I received a few days after his arrival, from 
which I venture to give an extract : " You know, my dear 
boy, that I have always believed that gambling, as it is 
absurdly called, is still in its infancy in California. I have 
always maintained that a perfect system might be invented, 
by which the game of poker may be made to yield a certain 
percentage to the intelligent player. I am not at liberty at 
present to disclose the system, but before leaving this city 
I intend to perfect it." He seems to have done so, and 
returned to Monte Flat with two dollars and thirty-seven 



A Monte Flat Pastoral. 169 

cents, the absolute remainder of his capital after such 
perfection. 

It was not until 1868 that he appeared to have finally 
succeeded in going home. He left us by the overland 
route — a route which he declared would give great oppor- 
tunity for the discovery of undeveloped resources. His 
last letter was dated Virginia City. He was absent three 
years. At the close of a very hot day in midsummer he 
alighted from the Wingdam stage with hair and beard 
powdered with dust and age. There was a certain shyness 
about his greeting, quite different from his usual frank 
volubility, that did not, however, impress us as any acces- 
sion of character. For some days he was reserved regard- 
ing his recent visit, contenting himself with asserting, with 
more or less aggressiveness, that he had " always said he 
was going home, and now he had been there." Later, he 
grew more communicative, and spoke freely and critically 
of the manners and customs of New York and Boston, com- 
mented on the social changes in the years of his absence, 
and, I remember, was very hard upon what he deemed the 
follies incidental to a high state of civilisation. Still later, 
he darkly alluded to the moral laxity of the higher planes 
of Eastern society, but it was not long before he completely 
tore away the veil and revealed the naked wickedness of 
New York social life in a way I even now shudder to recall. 
Vinous intoxication, it appeared, was a common habit of the 
first ladies of the city ; immoralities which he scarcely dared 
name were daily practised by the refined of both sexes ; 
niggardliness and greed were the common vices of the rich. 
*' I have always asserted," he continued, "that corruption 
must exist where luxury and riches are rampant, and capital 
is not used to develop the natural resources of the country. 
Thank you — I will take mine without sugar." It is possible 
that some of these painful details crept into the local 



1 70 A Monte Flat Pastoral. 

journals. I remember an editorial in the " Monte Flat 
Monitor," entitled "The Effete East," in which the fatal 
decadence of New York and New England was elaborately 
stated, and California offered as a means of natural salva- 
tion. "Perhaps," said the " Monitor," "we might add that 
Calaveras County offers superior inducements to the Eastern 
visitor with capital." 

Later he spoke of his family. The daughter he had left 
a child had grown into beautiful womanhood ; the son was 
already taller and larger than his father, and in a playful 
trial of strength, " the young rascal," added Plunkett, with 
a voice broken with paternal pride and humorous objurga- 
tion, had twice thrown his doting parent to the ground. 
But it was of his daughter he chiefly spoke. Perhaps 
emboldened by the evident interest which mascuUne Monte 
Flat held in feminine beauty, he expatiated at some length 
on her various charms and accomplishments, and finally 
produced her photograph — that of a very pretty girl — to 
their infinite peril. But his account of his first meeting 
with her was so peculiar that I must fain give it after his 
own methods, which were, perhaps, some shades less pre- 
cise and elegant than his written style. 

" You see, boys, it's always been my opinion that a man 
oughter be able to tell his own flesh and blood by instinct. 
It's ten years since I'd seen my Melindy, and she was then 
only seven, and about so high. So, when I went to New 
York, what did I do ? Did I go straight to my house and 
ask for my wife and daughter, like other folks ? No, sir ! 
I rigged myself up as a pedlar, as a pedlar, sir, and I 
rung the bell. When the servant came to the door, I 
wanted — don't you see — to show the ladies some trinkets. 
Then there was a voice over the banister, says, ' Don't 
want anything — send him away.' 'Some nice laces, 
ina'am, smuggled,' I says, looking up. * Get out, you 



A Monte Flat Pastoral. 1 7 1 

wretch/ says she. I knew the voice, boys — it was my 
wife ; sure as a gun — thar wasn't any instinct thar. ' May- 
be the young ladies want somethin',' I said. ' Did you 
hear me ! ' says she, and with that she jumps forward and 
I left. It's ten years, boys, since I've seen the old woman, 
but somehow, when she fetched that leap, I naterally 
left." 

He had been standing beside the bar— his usual attitude 
— when he made this speech, but at this point he half-faced 
his auditors with a look that was very effective. Indeed, a 
few, who had exhibited some signs of scepticism and lack 
of interest, at once assumed an appearance of intense 
gratification and curiosity as he went on. 

" Well, by hangin' round there for a day or two, I found 
out at last it was to be Melindy's birthday next week, and 
that she was goin' to have a big party. I tell ye what, boys, 
it weren't no slouch of a reception. The whole house was 
bloomin' with flowers, and blazin' with lights, and there 
was no end of servants and plate and refreshments and 
fixin's " 

" Uncle Joe." 

« Well ? " 

" Where did they get the money ? " 

Plunkett faced his interlocutor with a severe glance. 
" I always said," he replied slowly, " that when I went 
home, I'd send on ahead of me a draft for ten thousand 
dollars. I always said that, didn't I ? Eh ? And I said 
I was goin' home — and I've been home — haven't I ? 
Well ? " 

Either there was something irresistibly conclusive in this 
logic, or else the desire to hear the remainder of Plunkett's 
story was stronger, but there was no more interruption. 
His ready good-humour quickly returned, and, with a slight 
chuckle, he went on. 



172 A Monte Flat Pastoi-al, 

" I went to the biggest jewellery shop in town, and I 
bought a pair of diamond earrings and put them in my 
pocket, and went to the house. ' What name ? ' says the 
chap who opened the door, and he looked like a cross 
'twixt a restaurant waiter and a parson. ' Skeesicks,' said 
I. He takes me in, and pretty soon my wife comes sailin' 
into the parlour, and says, ' Excuse me, but I don't think 
I recognise the name.' She was mighty polite, for I had 
on a red wig and side-whiskers. 'A friend of your husband's 
from California, ma'am, with a present for your daughter, 

Miss ' , and I made as I had forgot the name. But all 

of a sudden a voice said, 'That's too thin,' and in walked 
Melindy. * It's playin' it rather low down, father, to pre- 
tend you don't know your daughter's name — ain't it now? 
How are you, old man ? ' And with that she tears off my 
wig and whiskers, and throws her arms around my neck, 
— instinct, sir, pure instinct !" 

Emboldened by the laughter which followed his descrip- 
tion of the filial utterances of Melinda, he again repeated 
her speech, with more or less elaboration, joining in with, 
and indeed often leading, the hilarity that accompanied it, 
and returning to it with more or less incoherency, several 
times during the evening. 

And so at various times, and at various places — but 
chiefly in bar-rooms — did this Ulysses of Monte Flat 
recount the story of his wanderings. There were several 
discrepancies in his statement, there was sometimes con- 
siderable prolixity of detail, there was occasional change 
of character and scenery, there was once or twice an 
absolute change in the denouement, but always the fact 
of his having visited his wife and children remained. Of 
course in a sceptical community like that of Monte Flat — 
a community accustomed to great expectation and small 
realisation — a community wherein, to use the local dialect, 



A Monte Flat Pastoral. i ']Ty 

"they got the colour and struck hardpan," more frequently 
than any other mining camp — in such a community the 
fullest credence was not given to old man Plunkett's facts. 
There was only one exception to the general unbelief — 
Henry York of Sandy Bar. It was he who was always an 
attentive listener ; it was his scant purse that had often 
furnished Plunkett with means to pursue his unprofitable 
speculations ; it was to him that the charms of Melinda 
w^ere more frequently rehearsed; it was he that had bor- 
rowed her photograph ; and it was he that, sitting alone in 
his little cabin one night, kissed that photograph until his 
honest, handsome face glowed again in the firelight. 

It was dusty in Monte Flat. The ruins of the long, dry 
season were crumbling everywhere ; everywhere the dying 
summer had strewn its red ashes a foot deep or exhaled its 
last breath in a red cloud above the troubled highways. The 
alders and cotton- woods that marked the line of the water- 
courses were grimy with dust, and looked as if they might 
have taken root in the open air ; the gleaming stones of the 
parched water-courses themselves were as dry bones in the 
valley of death. The dusty sunset at times painted the 
flanks of the distant hills a dull, coppery hue ; on other 
days there was an odd, indefinable earthquake halo on the 
volcanic cones of the farther coast spurs ; again, an acid, 
resinous smoke from the burning wood on Heavytree Hill 
smarted the eyes and choked the free breath of Monte Flat, 
or a fierce wind, driving everything — including the shrivelled 
summer hke a curled leaf — before it, swept down the 
flanks of the Sierras and chased the inhabitants to the doors 
of their cabins, and shook its red fist in at their windows. 
And on such a night as this — the dust having, in some 
way, choked the wheels of material progress in Monte Flat 
— most of the inhabitants were gathered listlessly in the 
gilded bar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel, spitting silently 



1 74 ^ Monte Flat Pastoral. 

at the redhot stove that tempered the mountain winds 
to the shorn lambs of Monte Flat, and waiting for the 
rain. 

Every method known to the Flat of beguiling the time 
until the advent of this long-looked-for phenomenon had 
bgen tried. It is true the methods were not many, being 
limited chiefly to that form of popular facetiae known as 
practical .joking; and even this had assumed the seriousness 
of a business pursuit. Tommy Roy, who had spent two 
hours in digging a ditch in front of his own door — into 
which a few friends casually dropped during the evening — 
looked ennuye and dissatisfied ; the four prominent citizens, 
who, disguised as footpads, had stopped the County 
Treasurer on the Wingdam road, were jaded from their 
playful efforts next morning; the principal physician and 
lawyer of Monte Flat, who had entered into an unhallowed 
conspiracy to compel the Sheriff of Calaveras and his posse 
to serve a writ of ejectment on a grizzly bear, feebly dis- 
guised under the name of " one Major Ursus," who haunted 
the groves of Heavytree Hill, wore an expression of resigned 
weariness. Even the editor of the " Monte Flat Monitor," who 
had that morning written a glowing account of a battle with 
the Wipneck Indians for the benefit of Eastern readers — 
even he looked grave and worn. When, at last, Abner 
Dean of Angel's, who had been on a visit to San Francisco, 
walked into the room, he was, of course, victimised in the 
usual way by one or two apparently honest questions which 
ended in his answering them, and then falling into the 
trap of asking another to his utter and complete shame 
and mortification — but that was all. Nobody laughed, and 
Abner, although a victim, did not lose his good-humour. 
He turned quietly on his tormentors and said — 

"I've got something better than that — you know old 
man Plunkett ? " 



A Monte Flat Pastoral. 1 7 ^ 

Everybody simultaneously. spat at the stove and nodded 
his head. 

"You know he went home three years ago?" Two or 
three changed the position of their legs from the backs of 
different chairs, and one man said "Yes." 

" Had a good time home ?" 

Everybody looked cautiously at the man who had said 
"Yes," and he, accepting the responsibility with a faint- 
hearted smile, said " Yes '' again, and breathed hard. 

"Saw his wife and child, purty gal?" said Abner cautiously. 

" Yes," answered the man doggedly. 

" Saw her photograph, perhaps ? " continued Abner Dean 
quietly. 

The man looked hopelessly around for support. Two or 
three who had been sitting near him and evidently encou- 
raging him with a look of interest, now shamelessly aban- 
doned him and looked another way. Henry York flushed 
a little and veiled his. brown eyes. The man hesitated, and 
then with a sickly smile that was intended to convey 
the fact that he was perfectly aware of the object of this 
questioning, and was only humouring it from abstract good 
feeling, returned " Yes," again. 

" Sent home — let's see — ten thousand dollars, wasn't 
it ? " Abner Dean went on. 

"Yes," reiterated the man, with the same smile. 

"Well, I thought so," said Abner quietly; "but the fact 
is, you see, that he never went home at all — nary time." 

Everybody stared at Abner in genuine surprise and inte- 
rest, as with provoking calmness and a half-lazy manner he 
went on. 

''You see, thar was a man down in 'Frisco as knowed 
him and saw him in Sonora during the whole of that three 
years. He was herding sheep or tending cattle, or spekilat- 
ing all that time, and hadn't a red cent. Well, it 'mounts to 



176 A Monte Flat Pastoral. 

this — that 'ar Plunkett ain't been east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains since '49." 

The laugh which Abner Dean had the right to confidently 
expect came, but it was bitter and sardonic. I think indig- 
nation was apparent in the minds of his hearers. It was 
felt, for the first time, that there was a limit to practical 
joking. A deception carried on for a year, compromising 
the sagacity of Monte Flat, was deserving the severest repro- 
bation. Of course nobody had believed Plunkett^ but then 
the supposition that it might be believed in adjacent camps 
that they had believed him was gall and bitterness. The 
lawyer thought that an indictment for obtaining money 
under false pretences might be found, the physician had 
long suspected him of insanity, and was not certain but that 
he ought to be confined. The four prominent merchants 
thought that the business interests of Monte Flat demanded 
that something should be done. In the midst of an excited 
and angry discussion the door slowly opened, and old man 
Plunkett staggered into the room. 

He had changed pitifully in the last six months. His hair 
was a dusty yellowish-gray, like the chimisal on the flanks 
of Heavytree Hill ; his face was waxen- white and blue and 
puffy under the eyes ; his clothes were soiled and shabby — 
streaked in front with the stains of hurried luncheons eaten 
standing, and fluffy behind with the wool and hair of hurriedly 
extemporised couches. In obedience to that odd law, that 
the more seedy and soiled a man's garments become the 
less does he seem inclined to part with them, even during 
that portion of the twenty-four hours when they are deemed 
least essential, Plunkett's clothes had gradually taken on 
the appearance of a kind of bark, or an out-growth from 
within, for which their possessor was not entirely responsible. 
Howbeit, as he entered the room he attempted to button 
his coat over a dirty shirt, and passed his fingers, after the 



A Monte Flat Pastoral. 177 

manner of some animal, over his cracker-strewn beard — in 
recognition of a cleanly public sentiment. But even as he 
did so tiie weak smile faded from his lips, and his hand, 
after fumbling aimlessly around a button, dropped helplessly 
at his side. For, as he leaned his back against the bar and 
faced the group, he for the first time became aware that 
every eye but one was fixed upon him. His quick, nervous 
apprehension at once leaped to the truth. His miserable 
secret was out and abroad in the very air about him. As a 
last resort, he glanced despairingly at Henry York, but his 
flushed face was turned toward the wandows. 

No w^ord was spoken. As the barkeeper silently sw^ung 
a decanter and glass before him, he took, a cracker from a 
dish and mumbled it with affected unconcern. He lingered 
over his liquor, until its potency stiffened his relaxed sinews 
and dulled the nervous edge of his apprehension, and then 
he suddenly faced around. " It don't look as if we were 
goin' to hev any rain much afore Christmas," he said with 
defiant ease. 
, No one made any reply. 

"Just like this in '52 and again in '60. It's always been 
my opinion that these dry seasons come reg'lar. I've said 
it afore. I say it again. It's jist as I said about going home, 
you know," he added with desperate recklessness. 

"Thar's a man," said Abner Dean lazily, "ez sez you 
never went home. Thar's a man ez sez you've been three 
years in Sonora. Thar's a man ez sez you haint seen your 
wife and daughter since '49. Thar's a man ez sez you've 
been playin' this camp for six months." 

There w'as a dead silence. Then a voice said, quite as 
quietly — 

"That man lies." 

It was not the old man's voice. Everybody turned as 
Henry York slowly rose, stretching out his six feet of length, 

VOL. III. M 



178 A Monte Flat Pastoral. 

and, brushing away the ashes that had fallen from his pipe 
upon his breast, deliberately placed himself beside Plunkett, 
and faced the others. 

" That man ain't here," continued Abner Dean with list- 
less indifference of voice and a gentle preoccupation of 
manner, as he carelessly allowed his right hand to rest on 
his hip near his revolver. *' That man ain't here, but if I'm 
called upon to make good what he says, Avhy, I'm on hand." 

All rose as the two men — perhaps the least externally 
agitated of them all— approached each other. The lawyer 
stepped in between them. 

" Perhaps there's some mistake here. York, do you 
know that the old man has been home ? " 

'^ Yes." 

"How do you know it?" 

York turned his clear, honest, frank eyes on his questioner, 
and without a tremor told the only direct and unmitigated 
lie of his life. " Because I've seen him there." 

The answer was conclusive. It was known that York 
had been visiting the East during the old man's absence. 
The colloquy had diverted attention from Plunkett, who, 
pale and breathless, was staring at his unexpected deliverer. 
As he turned again toward his tormentors, there was some- 
thing in the expression of his eye that caused those that 
were nearest to him to fall back, and sent a strange, indefin- 
able thrill through the boldest and most reckless. As he 
made a step forward the physician almost unconsciously 
raised his hand with a warning gesture, and old man Plunkett, 
with his eyes fixed upon the redhot stove, and an odd 
smile playing about his mouth, began — 

"Yes — of course you did. Who says you didn't? It 
ain't no lie ; I said I was goin' home, and I've been home. 
Haven't I ? My God ! I have. Who says I've been lyin' ? 
Who says I'm dreamin' ? Is it true — why don't you speak ? 



A Moitte Flat Pastoi^aL 1 79 

It is true, after all. You say you saw me there, why don't 
you speak again ? Say ! Say ! — is it true ? It's going now, 
O my God — it's going again. It's going now. Save me ! " 
and with a fierce cry he fell forward in a fit upon the floor. 

When the old man regained his senses he found himself 
in York's cabin. A flickering fire of pine boughs lit up the 
rude rafters, and fell upon a photograph tastefully framed 
with fir-cones and hung above the brush whereon he lay. 
It was the portrait of a young girl. It was the first object 
to meet the old man's gaze, and it brought with it a flush 
of such painful consciousness that he started and glanced 
quickly around. But his eyes only encountered those of 
York — clear, brown, critical and patient, and they fell again. 

" Tell me, old man," said York, not unkindly, but with 
the same cold, clear tone in his voice that his eye betrayed 
a moment ago, " tell me, is that a lie too ? " and he pointed 
to the picture. 

The old man closed his eyes and did not reply. Two 
hours before the question would have stung him into some 
evasion or bravado. But the revelation contained in the 
question, as well as the tone of York's voice, was to him 
now, in his pitiable condition, a relief. It was plain even 
to his confused brain that York had lied when he had 
endorsed his story in the bar-room — it was clear to him 
now that he had not been home — that he was not, as he 
had begun to fear, going mad. It was such a relief that, 
with characteristic weakness, his former recklessness and 
extravagance returned. He began to chuckle — finally, to 
laugh uproariously. 

York, with his eyes still fixed on the old man, withdrew 
the hand with which he had taken his. 

" Didn't we fool 'em nicely, eh, Yorky ? He ! he ! The 
biggest thing yet ever played in this camp ! I always said 
I'd play 'em all some day, and I have — played 'em for six 



1 8o A MoiUe Flat Pastoi^al. 

months. Ain't it rich — ain't it the richest thing you ever 
seed ? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke 'bout that 
man as seed me in Sonora ? — warn't it good as the min- 
strels ? Oh, it's too much ! " and striking his leg with the 
palm of his hand, he almost threw himself from the bed in 
a paroxysm of laughter — a paroxysm that, nevertheless, 
appeared to be half real and half affected, 

" Is that photograph hers ? " said York in a low voice, 
after a slight pause. 

" Hers ? No ! It's one of the San Francisco actresses, 
he ! he ! Don't you see — I bought it for two bits in one of 
the book-stores. I never thought they'd swaller that too ! 
but they did ! Oh, but the old man played 'em this time, 
didn't he — eh ? " and he peered curiously in York's face. 

'' Yes, and he played me too," said York, looking steadily 
in the old man's eye. 

"Yes, of course," interposed Plunkett hastily, "but you 
know, Yorky, you got out of it well ! You've sold 'em too. 
We've both got 'em on a string now — you and me — got to 
stick together now. You did it well, Yorky, you did it well. 
Why, when you said you'd seen me in York city, I'm d — d 
if I didn't " 

"Didn't what?" said York gently, for the old man had 
stopped with a pale face and wandering eye. 

"Eh?" 

" You say when I said I had seen you in New York you 
thought " 

" You lie ! " said the old man fiercely, " I didn't say I 
thought anything. What are you trying to go back on me 
for ? Eh ? " His hands were trembling as he rose, mutter- 
ing, from the bed and made his way toward the hearth. 

" Gimme some whisky," he said presently, " and dry up. 
You oughter treat, anyway. Them fellows oughter treated 
last night. By hookey, I'd made 'em— only I fell sick." 



A Monte Fiat Pastoral. i8i 

York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the table beside 
him, and going to the door turned his back upon his guest 
and looked out on the night. Although it was clear moon- 
light the familiar prospect never to him seemed, so dreary. 
The dead waste of the broad Wingdam highway never 
seemed so monotonous — so like the days that he had passed 
and were to come to him — so like the old man in its 
suggestion of going somewhere and never getting there. He 
turned, and going up to Plunkett put his hand upon his 
shoulder and said — 

" I want you to answer one question fairly and 
squarely." 

The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid blood in 
the old man's veins and softened his acerbity, for the face 
he turned up to York was mellowed in its rugged outline 
and more thoughtful in expression as he said — 

"Go on, my boy." 

" Have you a wife and — daughter ? " 

"Before God, I have !" 

The two men were silent for a moment, both gazing at 
the fire. Then Plunkett began rubbing his knees slowly. 

" The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much," he began 
cautiously, " being a little on the shoulder, you know, and 
wantin', so to speak, a liberal California education — which 
makes, you know, a bad combination. It's always been 
my opinion that there ain't any worse. Why, she's as ready 
with her tongue as Abner Dean is with his revolver, only 
with the difference that she shoots from principle, as she 
calls it, and the consequence is she's always layin' for you. 
It's the effete East, my boy, that's ruinin' her ; it's them 
ideas she gets in New York and Boston that's made her 
and me what we are. I don't mind her havin' 'em if she 
didn't shoot. But havin' that propensity, them principles 
oughtn't to be lying round loose no more'n firearms." 



1 82 A Monte Flat Pastoral, 

" But your daughter ? " said York. 

The old man's hands went up to his eyes here, and then 
both hands and head dropped forward on the table. "Don't 
say anything 'bout her, my boy, don't ask me now." With 
one hand concealing his eyes he fumbled about with the 
other in his pockets for his handkerchief — but vainly. 
Perhaps it was owing to this fact that he repressed his tears, 
for when he removed his hand from his eyes they were 
quite dry. Then he found his voice. 

"She's a beautiful girl, beautiful, though I say it — and 
you shall see her, my boy, you shall see her, sure. I've got 
things about fixed now. I shall have my plan for reducin' 
ores perfected in a day or two, and I've got proposals from 
all the smeltin' works here " — here he hastily produced a 
bundle of papers that fell upon the floor — " and I'm goin' to 
send for 'em. I've got the papers here as will give me ten 
thousand dollars clear in the next month," he added, as he 
strove to collect the valuable documents again. "I'll have 
'em here by Christmas, if I live, and you shall eat your 
Christmas dinner with me, York, my boy — you shall, 
sure." 

With his tongue now fairly loosened by liquor and the 
suggestive vastness of his prospects, he rambled on more 
or less incoherently, elaborating and amplifying his plans — 
occasionally even speaking of them as already accomplished, 
until the moon rode high in the heavens, and York led him 
again to his couch. Here he lay for some time muttering 
to himself, until at last he sank into a heavy sleep. When 
York had satisfied himself of the fact, he gently took down 
the picture and frame, and, going to the hearth, tossed 
them on the dying embers, and sat down to see them burn. 

The fir-cones leaped instantly into flame; then the 
features that had entranced San Francisco audiences nightly 
flashed up and passed away — as such things are apt to 



A Monte Flat Pastoral. 183 

pass— and even the cynical smile on York's lips faded too. 
And then there came a supplemental and unexpected flash 
as the embers fell together, and by its light York saw a 
paper upon the floor. It was one that had fallen from the 
old man's pocket. As he picked it up listlessly a photo- 
graph slipped from its folds. It was the portrait of a young 
girl, and on its reverse was written, in a scrawling hand, 
" Melinda to Father." 

It was at best a cheap picture, but, ah me ! I fear even 
the deft graciousness of the highest art could not have 
softened the rigid angularities of that youthful figure, its 
self-complacent vulgarity, its cheap finery, its expressionless 
ill-favour. York did not look at it the second time. He 
turned to the letter for relief 

It was misspelled, it was unpunctuated, it was almost 
illegible, it was fretful in tone and selfish in sentiment. It 
was not, I fear, even original in the story of its woes. It 
was the harsh recital of poverty, of suspicion, of mean 
makeshifts and compromises, of low pains and lower long- 
ings, of sorrows that were degrading, of a grief that was 
pitiable. Yet it was sincere in a certain kind of vague 
yearning for the presence of the degraded man to whom it 
was written — an affection that was more like a confused 
instinct than a sentiment. 

York folded it again carefully, and placed it beneath the 
old man's pillow. Then he returned to his seat by the fire. 
A smile that had been playing upon his face, deepening 
the curves behind his moustache and gradually overrunning 
his clear brown eyes, presently faded away. It was last to 
go from his eyes, and it left there — oddly enough to tliose 
who did not know him — a tear. 

He sat there for a long time, leaning forward, his bead 
upon his hands. The wind that had been striving with the 
canvas roof all at once lifted its edges and a moonbeam 



1 84 A Monte Flat Pastoral, 

slipped suddenly in, and lay for a moment like a shining 
blade upon his shoulder. And knighted by its touch, 
straightway plain Henry York arose — sustained, high- 
purposed and self-reliant ! 

The rains had come at last. There was already a visible 
greenness on the slopes of Heavy tree Hill, and the long 
white track of the Wingdam road was lost in outlying pools 
and ponds a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The spent 
water-courses, whose white bones had been sinuously trailed 
over the flat, like the vertebrae of some forgotten Saurian, 
were full again ; the dry bones moved once more in the 
valley, and there was joy in the ditches, and a pardonable 
extravagance in the columns of the " Monte Flat Monitor." 
" Never before in the history of the county has the yield 
been so satisfactory. Our contemporary of the * Hillside 
Beacon,' who yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) 
that our best citizens were leaving town, in ' dug-outs,' on 
account of the flood, will be glad to hear that our distin- 
guished fellow-townsman, Mr. Henry York, now on a visit 
to his relatives in the East, lately took with him, in his 
'dug-out,' the modest sum of fifty thousand dollars, the 
result of one week's clean-up. We can imagine," con- 
tinued that sprightly journal, "that no such misfortune is 
likely to overtake Hillside this season. And yet we believe 
the ' Beacon ' man wants a railroad." A few journals broke 
out into poetry. The operator at Simpson's Crossing 
telegraphed to the Sacramento " Universe : " " All day the 
low clouds have shook their garnered fulness down." A 
San Francisco journal lapsed into noble verse, thinly 
disguised as editorial prose : "Rejoice, the gentle rain has 
come, the bright and pearly rain, which scatters blessings 
on the hills, and sifts them o'er the plain. Rejoice," etc. 
Indeed, there was only one to whom the rain had not 
brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In some mysterious 



A Mo7ite Flat Pastoral, 185 

and darksome way, it had interfered with the perfection 
of his new method of reducing ores, and thrown the advent 
of that invention back another season. It had brought him 
down to an habitual seat in the bar-room, where, to heedless 
and inattentive ears, he sat and discoursed of the East and 
his family. 

No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was rumoured that 
some funds had been lodged with the landlord, by a person 
or persons unknown, whereby his few wants were provided 
for. His mania — for that was the charitable construction 
which Monte Flat put upon his conduct — was indulged, 
even to the extent of Monte Flat's accepting his invitation 
to dine with his family on Christmas Day — an invitation 
extended frankly to every one with whom the old man drank 
or talked. But one day, to everybody's astonishment, he 
burst into the bar-room, holding an open letter in his hand. 
It read as follows : — 

" Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on 
Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends you 
choose. Henry York." 

The letter was handed round in silence. The old man, 
with a look alternating between hope and fear, gazed in the 
faces of the group. The Doctor looked up significantly, 
after a pause. " It's a forgery, evidently," he said in a 
low voice ; " he's cunning enough to conceive it — they 
always are — but you'll find he'll fail in executing it. Watch 
his face ! Old man," he said suddenly, in a loud, per- 
emptory tone, " this is a trick — a forgery — and you know it. 
Answer me squarely, and look me in the eye. Isn't it so?" 

The eyes of Plunkett stared a moment, and then dropped 
weakly. Then, with a feebler smile, he said, "You're too 
many for me, boys. The Doc's right. The little game's 
up. You can take the old man's hat," and so, tottering, 



1 86 A Monte Flat Pastoral 

trembling, and chuckling, he dropped into silence and his 
accustomed seat. But the next day he seemed to have for- 
gotten this episode, and talked as glibly as ever of the 
approaching festivity. 

And so the days and weeks passed until Christmas — a 
bright, clear day, warmed with south winds, and joyous with 
the resurrection of springing grasses — broke upon Monte 
Flat. And then there was a sudden commotion in the 
hotel bar-room, and Abner Dean stood beside the old 
man's chair, and shook him out of a slumber to his feet. 
*' Rouse up, old man ! York is here, with your wife and 
daughter at the cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. 
Here, boys, give him a lift," and in another moment a 
dozen strong and willing hands had raised the old man, and 
bore him in trmmph to the street, up the steep grade of 
Heavytree Hill, and deposited him, struggling and confused, 
in the porch of a little cottage. At the same instant, two 
women rushed forward, but were restrained by a gesture 
from Henry York. The old man was struggling to his feet. 
With an effort, at last, he stood erect, trembling, his eye 
fixed, a gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance in 
his voice. 

" It's all a trick, and a lie ! They ain't no flesh and 
blood or kin o' mine. It ain't my wife, nor child. My 
daughter's a beautiful girl — a beautiful girl — d'ye hear? 
She's in New York, with her mother, and I'm going to fetch 
her here. I said I'd go home, and I've been home — d'ye 
hear me ? — I've been home ! It's a mean trick you're 
playin' on the old man. Let me go, d'ye hear ? Keep them 
women off me! Let me go! I'm going — I'm going home!" 

His hands were thrown up convulsively in the air, and, 
half turning round, he fell sideways on the porch, and so to 
the ground. They picked him up hurriedly ; but too late. 
He had gone home. 



( i87 ) 



It was at a little mining camp in the California Sierras 
that he first dawned upon me in all his grotesque sweet- 
ness. 

I had arrived early in the morning, but not in time to 
intercept the friend who was the object of my visit. He 
had gone " prospecting " — so they told me on the river — 
and would not probably return until late in the afternoon. 
They could not say what direction he had taken ; they could 
not suggest that I would be likely to find him if I followed. 
But it was the general opinion that I had better wait. 

I looked around me. I was standing upon the bank of 
the river ; and, apparently, the only other human beings in 
the world were my interlocutors, who were even then just 
disappearing from my horizon down the steep bank toward 
the river's dry bed. I approached the edge of the bank. 

Where could I wait? 

Oh, anywhere ; down with them on the river-bar, where 
they were working, if I liked ! Or I could make myself at 
home in any of those cabins that I found lying round loose. 
Or, perhaps it would be cooler and pleasanter for me in my 
friend's cabin on the hilL Did 1 see those three large sugar- 
pines ? And, a little to the right, a canvas roof and chimney 
over the bushes ? Well, that was my friend's — that was 
Dick Sylvester's cabin. I could stake my horse in that little 
hollow, and just hang round there till he came. I would 



1 88 Baby Sylvester. 

find some books in the shanty ; I could amuse myself with 
them. Or I could play with the baby. 

Do what? 

But they had already gone. I leaned over the bank and 
called after their vanishing figures — 

'* What did you say I could do ?" 

The answer floated slowly up on the hot, sluggish air — 

" Pla-a-y with the ba-by." 

The lazy echoes took it up and tossed it languidly from 
hill to hill, until Bald Mountain opposite made some inco- 
herent remark about the baby, and then all was still. 

I must have been mistaken. My friend was not a man 
of family ; there was not a woman within forty miles of the 
river camp ; he never was so passionately devoted to chil- 
dren as to import a luxury so expensive. I must have been 
mistaken. 

I turned my horse's head toward the hill. As we slowly 
climbed the narrow trail, the little settlement might have 
been some exhumed Pompeian suburb, so deserted and 
silent were its habitations. The open doors plainly disclosed 
each rudely-furnished interior — the rough pine table, with 
the scant equipage of the morning meal still standing ; the 
wooden bunk, with its tumbled and dishevelled blankets. 
A golden lizard — the very genius of desolate stillness — had 
stopped breathless upon the threshold of one cabin ; a 
squirrel peeped impudently into the window of another ; a 
woodpecker, with the general flavour of undertaking which 
distinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer 
from the coffin-lid of the roof on which he was profes- 
sionally engaged, as we passed. For a moment, I half- 
regretted that I had not accepted the invitation to the river- 
bed ; but, the next moment, a breeze swept up the long, 
dark canon, and the waiting files of the pines beyond bent 
toward me in salutation. I think my horse understood as 



Baby Sylvester. 189 

well as myself that it was the cabins that made the solitude 
human, and therefore unbearable, for he quickened his 
pace, and with a gentle trot brought me to the edge of the 
wood and the three pines that stood like videttes before the 
Sylvester outpost. 

Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, I unslung the 
long riata from the saddlebow, and tethering him to a young 
sapling, turned toward the cabin. But I had gone only a 
few steps when I heard a quick trot behind me, and poor 
Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with fear, was at my heels. 
I looked hurriedly around. The breeze had died away, and 
only an occasional breath from the deep-chested woods, 
more like a long sigh than any articulate sound, or the dry 
singing of a cicala in the heated canon, were to be heard. 
I examined the ground carefully for rattlesnakes, but in vain. 
Yet here was Pomposo shivering from his arched neck to 
his sensitive haunches, his very flanks pulsating with terror. 
I soothed him as well as I could, and then walked to the 
edge of the wood and peered into its dark recesses. The 
bright flash of a bird's wing, or the quick dart of a squirrel, 
was all I saw. I confess it was with something of super- 
stitious expectation that I again turned toward the cabin. 
A fairy child, attended by Titania and her train, lying in an 
expensive cradle, would not have surprised me ; a Sleeping 
Beauty, whose awakening would have repeopled these 
solitudes with life and energy, I am afraid I began to con- 
fidently look for, and would have kissed without hesitation. 

But I found none of these. Here was the evidence of 
my friend's taste and refinement in the hearth swept scru- 
pulously clean, in the picturesque arrangement of the fur 
skins that covered the floor and furniture, and the serdpe* 
lying on the wooden couch. Here were the walls fanci- 
fully papered with illustrations from the "London News;" 

• A fine Mexican blanket, used as an outer garment for riding. 



IQO Baby Sylvester. 

here was the wood-cut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the 
chimney, quaintly framed with blue jays' wings ; here were 
his few favourite books on the swinging shelf; and here, lying 
upon the couch, the latest copy of "Punch," Dear Dick! 
The flour-sack was sometimes empty, but the gentle satirist 
seldom missed his weekly visit. 

I threw myself on the couch and tried to read. But I 
soon exhausted my interest in my friend's library, and lay 
there staring through the open door on the green hillside 
beyond. The breeze again sprang up, and a delicious 
coolness, mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole 
through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of bumble-bees 
outside the canvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the 
opposite mountain, and the fatigue of my morning ride, 
began to droop my eyelids. I pulled the serdpe over me 
as a precaution against the freshening mountain breeze, and 
in a few moments was asleep. 

I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been 
conscious, however, during my slumber, of my inability to 
keep myself covered by the serdpe^ for I awoke once or twice 
clutching it with a despairing hand as it was disappearing 
over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly 
aroused to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted 
by some equally persistent force, and letting it go, I was 
horrified at seeing it swiftly drawn under the couch. At 
this point I sat up completely awake ; for immediately after, 
what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to emerge 
from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, 
dragging the serdpe after it. There was no mistaking it 
now — it was a baby bear. A mere suckling, it was true — 
a helpless roll of fat and fur — but unmistakably, a grizzly 
cub ! 

I cannot recall anything more irresistibly ludicrous than 
its aspect as it slowly raised its small wondering eyes to 



Baby Sylvester. 191 

mine. It was so much taller in its haunches than its 
shoulders — its fore-legs were so disproportionately small — 
that in walking its hind-feet invariably took precedence. It 
was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed, inoffensive 
nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary 
somersaults, with the gravest astonishment. To add to its 
preposterous appearance, one of its hind-feet was adorned 
by a shoe of Sylvester's, into which it had accidentally and 
inextricably stepped. As this somewhat impeded its first 
impulse to fly, it turned to me ; and then, possibly recog- 
nising in the stranger the same species as its master, it 
paused. Presently, it slowly raised itself on its hind-legs, 
and vaguely and deprecatingly waved a baby paw, fringed 
with Uttle hooks of steel. I took the paw and shook it 
gravely. From that moment we were friends. The little 
affair of the serape was forgotten. 

Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship 
by an act of delicate courtesy. Following the direction of 
his eyes, I had no difificulty in finding, on a shelf near the 
ridge-pole, the sugarbox and the square lumps of white 
sugar that even the poorest miner is never without. While 
he was eating them I had time to examine him more closely. 
His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely modulated grey, 
deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was 
excessively long, thick, and soft as eider down, the cushions 
of flesh beneath perfectly infantine in their texture and con- 
tour. He was so very young that the palms of his half- 
human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except for the 
bright blue, steely hooks, half-sheathed in his little toes, 
there was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump 
figure. He was as free from angles as one of Leda's off- 
spring. Your caressing hand sank away in his fur with 
dreamy languor. To look at him long was an intoxica- 
tion of the senses ; to pat him was a wild delirium ; to 



192 Baby Sylvester. 

embrace him, an utter demoralisation of the intellectual 
faculties. 

When he had finished the sugar he rolled out of the door 
with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he 
expected me to follow. I did so, but the sniffing and 
snorting of the keen-scented Pomposo in the hollow, not 
only revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me 
to take another direction. After a moment's hesitation he 
concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a 
certain impish look in his eye, that he fully understood and 
rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As he rolled along 
at my side, with a gait not unlike a drunken sailor, I dis- 
covered that his long hair concealed a leather collar around 
his neck, which bore for its legend the single word, " Baby!" 
I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners. 
This, then, was the " baby " with whom I was to " play." 

How we " played ; " how Baby allowed me to roll him 
down hill, crawling and puffing up again each time, with 
perfect good humour ; how he climbed a young sapling 
after my Panama hat, which I had " shied " into one of the 
topmost branches ; how after getting it he refused to de- 
scend until it suited his pleasure ; how when he did come 
down he persisted in walking about on three legs, carrying 
my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his 
breast with the remaining one ; how I missed him at last, 
and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the 
tenantless cabins, with a bottle of syrup between his paws, 
vainly endeavouring to extract its contents — these and 
other details of that eventful day I shall not weary the 
reader with now. Enough, that when Dick Sylvester re- 
turned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled 
up, an 'immense bolster at the foot of the couch, asleep. 
Sylvester's first words after our greeting were — 

"Isn't he delicious ?" 



Baby Sylvester. \<^x 

. *' Perfectly. Where did you get him ? " 

" Lying under his dead mother, five miles from here," 
said Dick, lighting his pipe. " Knocked her over at fifty 
yards ; perfectly clean shot — never moved afterwards ! 
Baby crawled out, scared but unhurt. She must have been 
carrying him in her mouth, and dropped him when she 
faced me, for he wasn't more than three days old, and not 
steady on his pins. He takes the only milk that comes to 
the settlement— brought up by Adams Express at seven 
o'clock every morning. They say he looks like me. Do 
you think so ? " asked Dick, with perfect gravity, stroking 
his hay-coloured moustachios, and evidently assuming his 
best expression. 

I took leave of the baby early the next morning in 
Sylvester's cabin, and, out of respect for Pomposo's feelings, 
rode by without any postscript of expression. But the night 
before I had made Sylvester solemnly swear that, in the event 
of any separation between himself and Baby, it should re- 
vert to me. " At the same time," he had added, " it's only 
fair to say that I don't think of dying just yet, old fellow, 
and I don't know of anything else that would part the cub 
and me." 

Two months after this conversation, as I was turning 
over the morning's mail at my office in San Francisco, I 
noticed a letter bearing Sylvester's familiar hand. But it 
was post-marked " Stockton," and I opened it with some 
anxiety at once. Its contents were as follows : — 

" O Frank ! Don't you remember what we agreed upon 
anent the baby ? Well, consider me as dead for the next 
six mojiths, or gone where cubs can't follow me — East. I 
know you love the baby; but do you think, dear boy — 
now, really, do you think you could be a father to it? 
Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-mean- 

YOL. III. XT 



194 Baby Sylvester, 

ing enough ; but dare you take upon yourself the functions 
of guide, genius, or guardian to one so young and guileless ? 
Could you be the mentor to this Telemachus ? Think of 
the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question 
well, and let me know speedily, for I've got him as far as 
this place, and he's kicking up an awful row in the hotel- 
yard and rattling his chain like a maniac. Let me know 
by telegraph at once. Sylvester. 

"P.S. — Of course he's grown a little, and doesn't take 
things always as quietly as he did. He dropped rather 
heavily on two of Watson's 'purps' last week, and snatched 
old Watson himself, bald-headed, for interfering. You 
remember Watson : for an intelligent man, he knows very 
little of California fauna. How are you fixed for bears on 
Montgomery street — I mean in regard to corrals and 
things ? , S. 

*'P.P.S. — He's got some new tricks. The boys have 
been teaching him to put up his hands with them. He 
slings an ugly left. S." 

I am afraid that my desire to possess myself of Baby 
overcame all other considerations, and I telegraphed an 
affirmative at once to Sylvester. When I reached my 
lodgings late that afternoon, my landlady was awaiting me 
with a telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester — 

"All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a 
father to him. S." 

It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For a 
moment I was staggered at my own precipitation. I had 
as yet made no preparations— had said nothing to my 
landlady about her new guest. I expected to arrange 



Baby Sylvester. 195 

everything in time ; and now, through Sylvester's indecent 
haste, that time had been shortened twelve hours. 

Something, however, must be done at once. I turned 
to Mrs. Brown, I had great reliance in her maternal 
instincts ; I had that still greater reliance, common to our 
sex, in the general tender-heartedness of pretty women. 
But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a feeble smile, I tried 
to introduce the subject with classical ease and lightness. 
I even said, " If Shakespeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. 
Brown, believed that a lion among ladies was a dreadful 

thing, what must " But here I broke down, for Mrs. 

Brown, with the awful intuition of her sex, I saw at once 
was more occupied with my manner than my speech. So 
I tried a business brusguerie, and, placing the telegram in 
her hand, said hurriedly, "We must do something about 
this at once. It's perfectly absurd, but he will be here at one 
to-night. Beg thousand pardons, but business prevented 

my speaking before" and paused, out of breath and 

courage. 

Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted her pretty 
eyebrows, turned the paper over and looked on the other 
side, and then, in a remote and chilling voice, asked me if 
she understood me to say that the mother was coming also. 

" Oh, dear no," I exclaimed, with considerable relief; " the 
mother is dead, you know. Sylvester — that is my friend, 
who sent this — shot her when the baby was only three days 

old " But the expression of Mrs. Brown's face at this 

moment was so alarming that I saw that nothing but the 
fullest explanation would save me. Hastily, and I fear not 
very coherently, I told her all. 

She relaxed sweetly. She said I had frightened her with 
my talk about lions. Indeed, I think my picture of poor 
Baby — albeit a trifle highly coloured — touched her motherly 
heart. She was even a little vexed at what she called 



196 Baby Sylvester. 

Sylvester's "hard-heartedness." Still, I was not without 
some apprehension. It was two months since I had seen 
him, and Sylvester's vague allusion to his " slinging an ugly 
left" pained me. I looked at sympathetic little Mrs. Brown, 
and the thought of Watson's pups covered me with guilty 
confusion. 

Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me until he arrived. 
One o'clock came, but no Baby. Two o'clock — three 
o'clock passed. It was almost four when there was a wild 
clatter of horses' hoofs outside, and with a jerk a waggon 
stopped at the door. In an instant I had opened it and 
confronted a stranger. 'Almost at the same moment the 
horses attempted to run away with the waggon. 

The stranger's appearance was, to say the least, discon- 
certing. His clothes were badly torn and frayed ; his linen 
sack hung from his shoulders like a herald's apron \ one of 
his hands was bandaged ; his face scratched, and there was 
no hat on his disheveled head. To add to the general 
effect, he had evidently sought relief from his woes in drink, 
and he swayed from side to side as he clung to the door 
handle, and in a very thick voice stated that he had 
" suthin ' " for me outside. When he had finished the 
horses made another plunge. 

Mrs. Brown thought they must be frightened at some- 
thing. 

" Frightened ! " laughed the stranger with bitter irony. 
" Oh no ! Hossish ain't frightened ! On'y ran away four 
timesh comin' here. Oh no ! Nobody's frightened. Every- 
thin's all ri'. Ain't it. Bill ? " he said, addressing the driver. 
" On'y been overboard twish ; knocked down a hatchway 
once. Thash nothin' ! On'y two men unner doctor's ban's 
at Stockton. Thash nothin' ! Six hunner dollarsh cover 
all dammish." 

I was too much disheartened to reply, but moved toward 



Baby Sylvester. 197 

the waggon. The stranger eyed me with an astonishment 
that almost sobered him. 

" Do you reckon to tackle that animile yourself? " he 
asked, as he surveyed me from head to foot. 

I did not speak, but, with an appearance of boldness I was 
far from feeling, walked to the waggon and called " Baby !" 

"All ri'. Cash loosh them straps, Bill, and stan' clear." 

The straps were cut loose, and Baby — the remorseless, 
the terrible — quietly tumbled to the ground, and, rolling to 
my side, rubbed his foolish head against me. 

I think the astonishment of the two men was beyond any 
vocal expression. Without a word the drunken stranger 
got into the waggon and drove away. 

And Baby? He had grown, it is true, a trifle larger; 
but he was thin, and bore the marks of evident ill-usage. 
His beautiful coat was matted and unkempt, and his claws 
— those bright steel hooks — had been ruthlessly pared to 
the quick. His eyes were furtive and restless, and the old 
expression of stupid good-humour had changed to one of 
intelligent distrust. His intercourse with mankind had 
evidently quickened his intellect without broadening his 
moral nature. 

I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown from 
smothering him in blankets and ruining his digestion with 
the delicacies of her larder; but I at last got him completely 
rolled up in the corner of my room and asleep. I lay 
awake some time later with plans for his future. I finally 
determined to take him to Oakland, where I had built a 
little cottage and always spent my Sundays, the very next 
day. And in the midst of a rosy picture of domestic 
felicity I fell asleep. 

When I awoke it was broad day. My eyes at once 
sought the corner where Baby had been lying. But he was 
gone. I sprang from the bed, looked under it, searched 
the closet, but in vain. The door was still locked; but 



198 Baby Sylvester, 

there were the marks of his blunted claws upon the sill of 
the window that I had forgotten to close. He had evi- 
dently escaped that way — but where ? The window opened 
upon a balcony, to which the only other entrance was 
through the hall. He must be still in the house. 

My hand was already upon the bell-rope, but I stayed it 
in time. If he had not made himself known, why should I 
disturb the house ? I dressed myself hurriedly and slipped 
into the hall. The first object that met my eyes was a 
boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks of Baby's 
teeth, and as I looked along the hall I saw too plainly 
that the usual array of freshly-blackened boots and shoes 
before the lodgers' doors was not there. As I ascended 
the stairs I found another, but with the blacking carefully 
licked off. On the third floor were two or three more 
boots, slightly mouthed ; but at this point Baby's taste for 
blacking had evidently palled. A little farther on was a 
ladder, leading to an open scuttle. I mounted the ladder, 
and reached the fiat roof that formed a continuous level 
over the row of houses to the corner of the street. Behind 
the chimney on the very last roof something was lurking. 
It was the fugitive Baby. He was covered with dust and 
dirt and fragments of glass. But he was sitting on his 
hind-legs, and was eating an enormous slab of pea-nut 
candy with a look of mingled guilt and infinite satisfaction. 
He even, I fancied, slightly stroked his stomach with his 
disengaged fore-paw as I approached. He knew that I 
was looking for him, and the expression of his eye said 
plainly, "The past, at least, is secure." 

I hurried him, with the evidences of his guilt, back to 
the scuttle, and descended on tip-toe to the floor beneath. 
Providence favoured us ; I met no one on the stairs, and 
his own cushioned tread was inaudible. I think he was 
conscious of the dangers of detection, for he even forbore 
to breathe, or much less chew the last mouthful he had 



Baby Sylvester, 199 

taken ; and he skulked at my side, with the syrup dropping 
from his motionless jaws. I think he would have silently 
choked to death just then for my sake, and it was not 
until I had reached my room again, and threw myself 
panting on the sofa, that I saw how near strangulation he 
had been. He gulped once or twice, apologetically, and 
then walked to the corner of his own accord, and rolled 
himself up like an immense sugar-plum, sweating remorse 
and treacle at every pore. 

I locked him in when I went to breakfast, when I found 
Mrs. Brown's lodgers in a state of intense excitement over 
certain mysterious events of the night before, and the 
dreadful revelations of the morning. It appeared that 
burglars had entered the block from the scuttles; that, 
being suddenly alarmed, they had quitted our house with- 
out committing any depredation, dropping even the boots 
they had collected in the halls; but that a desperate attempt 
had been made to force the till in the confectioner's shop 
on the corner, and that the glass show-cases had been ruth- 
lessly smashed. A courageous servant in No. 4 had seen 
a masked burglar, on his hands and knees, attempting to 
enter their scuttle ; but on her shouting, " Away wid yees," 
he instantly fled. 

I sat through this recital with cheeks that burned un- 
comfortably ; nor was I the less embarrassed on raising my 
eyes to meet Mrs. Brown's fixed curiously and mischievously 
on mine. As soon as I could make my escape from the 
table I did so, and, running rapidly upstairs, sought refuge 
from any possible inquiry in my own room. Baby was still 
asleep in the corner. It would not be safe to remove him 
until the lodgers had gone down town, and I was revolving 
m my mind the expediency of keeping him until night 
veiled his obtrusive eccentricity from the public eye, when 
there came a cautious tap at my door. I opened it. Mrs. 



200 Baby Sylvester. 

Brown slipped in quietly, closed the door softly, stood with 
her back against it and her hand on the knob, and beckoned 
me mysteriously towards her. Then she asked, in a low 
voice — 

" Is hair-dye poisonous ? " 

I was too confounded to speak. 

" Oh do ! you know what I mean," she said impatiently. 
"This stuff." She produced suddenly from behind her a 
bottle with a Greek label — so long as to run two or three 
times spirally around it from top to bottom. " He says it 
isn't a dye; it's a vegetable preparation, for invigorating" 

*' Who says ? " I asked despairingly. 

" Why, Mr. Parker, of course," said Mrs. Brown severely, 
with the air of having repeated the name a great many 
times — " the old gentleman in the room above. The 
simple question I want to ask," she continued, with the 
calm manner of one who has just convicted another of 
gross ambiguity of language, " is only this : If some of this 
stuff were put in a saucer and left carelessly on the table, 
and a child, or a baby, or a cat, or any young animal, should 
come in at the window and drink it up — a whole saucer 
full — because it had a sweet taste, would it be likely to 
hurt them ? " 

I cast an anxious glance at Baby, sleeping peacefully in 
the corner, and a very grateful one at Mrs. Brown, and 
said I didn't think it would. 

" Because," said Mrs. Brown loftily, as she opened the 
door, " I thought if it was poisonous, remedies might be 
used in time. Because," she added suddenly, abandoning 
her lofty manner and wildly rushing to the corner, with a 
frantic embrace of the unconscious Baby, "because if any 
nasty stuff should turn its booful hair a horrid green or a 
naughty pink, it would break its own muzzer's heart, it 
would ! " 



Baby Sylvester. 201 

But before I could assure Mrs, Brown of the inefficiency 
of hair-dye as an internal application, she had darted from 
the room. 

That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, Baby and I 
decamped from Mrs. Brown's. Distrusting the too emo- 
tional nature of that noble animal, the horse, I had recourse 
to a hand-cart, drawn by a stout Irishman, to convey my 
charge to the ferry. Even then Baby refused to go unless 
I walked by the cart, and at times rode in it. 

" I wish," said Mrs. Brown, as she stood by the door, 
wrapped in an immense shawd, and saw us depart, " I wish 
it looked less solemn — less hke a pauper's funeral." 

I must admit that, as I walked by the cart that night, I 
felt very much as if I were accompanying the remains of 
some humble friend to his last resting-place ; and that, when 
I was obliged to ride in it, I never could entirely convince 
myself that I was not helplessly overcome by liquor, or the 
victim of an accident, en route to the hospital. But at last 
we reached the ferry. On the boat I think no one dis- 
covered Baby except a drunken man, who approached me 
to ask for a light for his cigar, but who suddenly dropped 
it and fled in dismay to the gentlemen's cabin, where his 
incoherent ravings were luckily taken for the earlier indica- 
tions of delirium tremens. 

It was nearly midnight when I reached my little cottage 
on the outskirts of Oakland ; and it was with a feeling of 
relief and security that I entered, locked the door, and 
turned him loose in the hall, satisfied that henceforward 
his depredations would be limited to my own property. 
He was very quiet that night, and after he had tried 
to mount the hat-rack, under the mistaken impression 
that it was intended for his own gymnastic exercise, and 
knocked all the hats off, he went peaceably to sleep on 
the rug. 



202 Baby Sylvester. 

In a week, with the exercise afforded him by the run of 
a large, carefully-boarded enclosure, he recovered his health, 
strength, spirits, and much of his former beauty. His 
presence was unknown to my neighbours, although it was 
noticeable that horses invariably " shied " in passing to the 
windward of my house, and that the baker and milkman 
had great difficulty in the delivery of their wares in the 
morning, and indulged in unseemly and unnecessary pro- 
fanity in so doing. 

At the end of the week, I determined to invite a few 
friends to see the Baby, and to that purpose wrote a 
number of formal invitations. After descanting, at some 
length, on the great expense and danger attending his cap- 
ture and training, I offered a programme of the perfor- 
mances of the " Infant Phenomenon of Sierran Solitudes," 
drawn up into the highest professional profusion of alli- 
teration and capital letters. A few extracts will give the 
reader some idea of his educational progress — 

1. He will, rolled up in a Round Ball, roll down the Wood 

Shed, Rapidly, illustrating His manner of Escaping 
from His Enemy in his Native Wilds. 

2. He will Ascend the Well Pole, and remove from the 

Very Top a Hat, and as much of the Crown and 
Brim thereof as May be Permitted. 

3. He will perform in a pantomime, descriptive of the 

Conduct of the Big Bear, The Middle-Sized Bear, 
and The Little Bear of the Popular Nursery Legend. 

4. He will shake his chain Rapidly, showing his Manner 

of striking Dismay and Terror in the Breasts of 
Wanderers in Ursine Wildernesses. 

The morning of the exhibition came, but an hour before 
the performance the wretched Baby was missing. The 



Baby Sylvester. 203 

Chinese cook could not indicate his whereabouts. I 
searched the premises thoroughly, and then, in despair, 
took my hat and hurried out into the narrow lane that led 
toward the open fields and the woods beyond. But I found 
no trace nor track of Baby Sylvester. I returned, after an 
hour's fruitless search, to find my guests already assembled 
on the rear veranda. I briefly recounted my disappoint- 
ment, my probable loss, and begged their assistance. 

" Why," said a Spanish friend, who prided himself on 
his accurate knowledge of English, to Barker, w^ho seemed 
to be trying vainly to rise from his reclining position on 
the veranda, "Why do you not disengage yourself from 
the veranda of our friend? and why, in the name of 
Heaven, do you attach to yourself so much of this thing, 
and make to yourself such unnecessary contortion ? Ah," 
he continued, suddenly withdrawing one of his ow^n feet 
from the veranda with an evident effort, " I am myself 
attached ! Surely it is something here ! " 

It evidently was. My guests were all rising with difficulty, 
— the floor of the veranda was covered with some glutinous 
substance. It was — syrup ! 

I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn ; the keg of 
" golden syrup," purchased only the day before, lay empty 
upon the floor. There were sticky tracks all over the 
enclosure, but still no Baby. 

"There's something moving the ground over there by 
that pile of dirt," said Barker, 

He was right ; the earth was shaking in one corner of 
the enclosure like an earthquake. I approached cautiously. 
I saw, what I had not before noticed, that the ground was 
thrown up; and there, in the middle of an immense grave-like 
cavity, crouched Baby Sylvester, still digging, and slowly, 
but surely, sinking from sight in a mass of dust and clay. 

What were his intentions? Whether he was stung by 



204 Baby Sylvester, 

remorse, and wished to hide himself from my reproachful 
eyes, or whether he was simply trying to dry his syrup- 
besmeared coat, I never shall know, for that day, alas ! was 
his last with me. 

He was pumped upon for two hours, at the end of which 
time he still yielded a thin treacle. He was then taken and 
carefully enwrapped in blankets and locked up in the store- 
room. The next morning he was gone ! The lower portion 
of the window sash and pane were gone too. His success- 
ful experiments on the fragile texture of glass at the con- 
fectioner's, on the first day of his entrance to civilisation, 
had not been lost upon him. His first essay at combining 
cause and effect ended in his escape. 

Where he went, where he hid, who captured him if he 
did not succeed in reaching the foot-hills beyond Oakland, 
even the offer of a large reward, backed by the efforts of an 
intelligent police, could not discover. I never saw him 
again from that day until 

Did I see him ? I was in a horse-car on Sixth Avenue, a 
few days ago, when the horses suddenly became unmanage- 
able and left the track for the sidewalk, amid the oaths and 
execrations of the driver. Immediately in front of the car a 
crowd had gathered around two performing bears and a 
showman. One of the animals — thin, emaciated, and the 
mere wreck of his native strength — attracted my attention. 
I endeavoured to attract his. He turned a pair of bleared, 
sightless eyes in my direction, but there was no sign of 
recognition. I leaned ..from the car-window and called 
softly, " Baby ! " But he did not heed. I closed the win- 
dow. The car was just moving on, when he suddenly 
turned, and, either by accident or design, thrust a callous 
paw through the glass. 

" It's worth a dollar-and-a-half to put in a new pane," said 
the conductor, " if folks will play with bears ! " 



( 205 ) 



mm lee, tfie Pagan* 

As I opened Hop Sing's letter there fluttered to the 
ground a square strip of yellow paper covered with hiero- 
glyphics, which at first glance I innocently took to be the 
label from a pack of Chinese fire-crackers. But the same 
envelope also contained a smaller strip of rice paper, with 
two Chinese characters traced in India ink, that I at once 
knew to be Hop Sing's visiting card. The whole, as after- 
wards literally translated, ran as follows : — 

" To the stranger the gates of my house are not closed ; 
the rice jar is on the left, and the sweetmeats on the 
right as you enter. 
Two sayings of the Master : 

Hospitahty is the virtue of the son and the wisdom 

of the ancestor. 
The superior man is light-hearted after the crop- 
gathering ; he makes a festival. 
When the stranger is in your melon patch observe him 
not too closely ; inattentioj^ is often the highest form 
of civility. 

Happiness, Peace, and Prosperity. 

Hop Sing." 

Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and proverbial 
wisdom, and although this last axiom was very characteristic 
of my friend Hop Sing, who was that most sombre of all 



2o6 Wan Lee, the Pagan, 

humorists, a Chinese philosopher, I must confess that, even 
after a very free translation, I was at a loss to make any 
immediate application of the message. Luckily I discovered 
a third enclosure in the shape of a little note in English and 
Hop Sing's own commercial hand. It ran thus — 

" The pleasure of your company is requested at No. — , 
Sacramento Street, on Friday Evening at 8 o'clock. A cup of 
tea at 9 — sharp. Hop Sing." 

This explained all. It meant a visit to Hop Sing's ware- 
house, the opening and exhibition of some rare Chinese 
novelties and curios^ a chat in the back ofhce, a cup of tea 
of a perfection unknown beyond these sacred precincts, 
cigars, and a visit to the Chinese Theatre or Temple. This 
was in fact the favourite programme of Hop Sing when he 
exercised his functions of hospitality as the chief factor or 
Superintendent of the Ning Foo Company. 

At eight o'clock on Friday evening I entered the ware- 
house of Hop Sing. There was that deliciously commingled 
mysterious foreign odour that I had so often noticed ; there 
was the old array of uncouth looking objects, the long pi'o- 
cession of jars and crockery, the same singular blending of 
the grotesque and the mathematically neat and exact, the 
same endless suggestions of frivoUty and fragihty, the same 
want of harmony in colours that were each, in themselves, 
beautiful and rare. Kites in the shape of enormous dragons 
and gigantic butterflies ; kites so ingeniously arranged as to 
utter at intervals, when facing the wind, the cry of a hawk ; 
kites so large as to be beyond any boy's power of restraint 
— so large that you understood why kite-flying in China was 
an amusement for adults; gods of china and bronze so 
gratuitously ugly as to be beyond any human interest or 
sympathy from their very impossibility ; jars of sweetmeats 



Wan Lee, the Pagan. 207 



covered all over with moral sentiments from Confucius; 
hats that looked like baskets, and baskets that looked like 
hats ; silks so light that I hesitate to record the incredible 
number of square yards that you might pass through the 
ring on your little finger — these and a great many other inde- 
scribable objects were all familiar to me. I pushed my way 
through the dimly-lighted warehouse until I reached the 
back office or parlour, where I found Hop Sing waiting to 
receive me. 

Before I describe him I want the average reader to dis- 
charge from his mind any idea of a Chinaman that he 
may have gathered from the pantomime. He did not 
wear beautifully scalloped drawers fringed with little bells 
— I never met a Chinaman who did ; he did not habitually 
carry his forefinger extended before him at right angles with 
his body, nor did I ever hear him utter the mysterious sen- 
tence, " Ching a ring a ring chaw," nor dance under any pro- 
vocation. He was, on the whole, a rather grave, decorous, 
handsome gentleman. His complexion, which extended 
all over his head except where his long pig-tail grew, was 
like a very nice piece of glazed brown paper-muslin. His 
eyes were black and bright, and his eyelids set at an angle 
of 15°; his nose straight and delicately formed, his mouth 
small, and his teeth white and clean. He wore a dark blue 
silk blouse, and in the streets on cold days a short jacket 
of Astrakhan fur. He wore also a pair of drawers of blue 
brocade gathered tightly over his calves and ankles, offering 
a general sort of suggestion that he had forgotten his trousers 
that morning, but that, so gentlemanly were his manners, 
his friends had forborne to mention the fact to him. His 
manner was urbane, although quite serious. He spoke 
French and English fluently. In brief, I doubt if you 
could have found the equal of this Pagan shopkeeper 
among the Christian traders of San Francisco. 



2o8 Wan Lee, the Pagan. 

There were a few others present : a Judge of the Federal 
Court, an editor, a high government official, and a pro- 
minent merchant. After we had drunk our tea, and tasted 
a few sweetmeats from a mysterious jar, that looked as if it 
might contain a preserved mouse among its other nonde- 
script treasures. Hop Sing arose, and gravely beckoning us 
to follow him, began to descend to the basement. When 
we got there, we were amazed at finding it brilliantly lighted, 
and that a number of chairs were arranged in a half-circle 
on the asphalt pavement. When he had courteously seated 
us, he said — 

" I have invited you to witness a performance which I 
can at least promise you no other foreigners but yourselves 
have ever seen. Wang, the court juggler, arrived here 
yesterday morning. He has never given a performance 
outside of the palace before. I have asked him to entertain 
my friends this evening. He requires no theatre, stage, ac- 
cessories, or any confederate — nothing more than you see 
here. Will you be pleased to examine the ground yourselves, 
gentlemen." 

Of course we examined the premises. It was the 
ordinary basement or cellar of the San Francisco store- 
house, cemented to keep out the damp. We poked our 
sticks into the pavement and rapped on the walls to satisfy 
our polite host, but for no other purpose. We were quite 
content to be the victims of any clever deception. For 
myself, I knew I was ready to be deluded to any extent, 
and if I had been offered an explanation of what followed, 
I should have probably declined it. 

Although I am satisfied that Wang's general performance 
was the first of that kind ever given on American soil, it has 
probably since become so familiar to many of my readers 
that I shall not bore them with it here. He began by set- 
ting to flight, with the aid of his fan, the usual number of 



Wan Lee, the Pagan. 209 

butterflies made before our eyes of little bits of tissue paper, 
and kept them in the air during the remainder of the per- 
formance. I have a vivid recollection of the judge trying 
to catch one that had lit on his knee, and of its evading him 
with the pertinacity of a living insect. And even at this 
time Wang, still plying his fan, was taking chickens out of 
hats, making oranges disappear, pulling endless yards of silk 
from his sleeve, apparently filling the whole area of the 
basement with goods that appeared mysteriously from the 
ground, from his own sleeves, from nowhere ! He swallowed 
knives to the ruin of his digestion for years to come ; he 
dislocated every Hmb of his body ; he reclined in the air, 
apparently upon nothing. But his crowning performance, 
which I have never yet seen repeated, was the most weird, 
mysterious, and astounding. It is my apology for this long 
introduction, my sole excuse for writing this article, the 
genesis of this veracious history. 

He cleared the ground of its encumbering articles for 
a space of about fifteen feet square, and then invited us all 
to walk forward and again examine it. We did so gravely ; 
there was nothing but the cemented pavement below to be 
seen or felt. He then asked for the loan of a handkerchief, 
and, as I chanced to be nearest him, I offered mine. He 
took it and spread it open upon the floor. Over this he 
spread a large square of silk, and over this again a large 
shawl nearly covering the space he had cleared. He then 
took a position at one of the points of this rectangle, and 
began a monotonous chant, rocking his body to and fro in 
time with the somewhat lugubrious air. 

We sat still and waited. Above the chant we could hear 
the striking of the city clocks, and the occasional rattle of 
a cart in the street overhead. The absolute watchfulness 
and expectation, the dim, mysterious half-light of the cellar, 
falling in a gruesome way upon the misshapen bulk of a 

VOL. III. o 



2IO Wan Lee, the Pagan. 

Chinese deity in the background, a faint smell of opium 
smoke mingling with spice, and the dreadful uncertainty 
of what we were really waiting for, sent an uncomfortable 
thrill down our backs, and made us look at each other with 
a forced and unnatural smile. This feeling was heightened 
when Hop Sing slowly rose, and, without a word, pointed 
with his finger to the centre of the shawl. 

There was something beneath the shawl ! Surely — and 
something that was not there before. At first a mere sug- 
gestion in relief, a faint outline, but growing more and 
more distinct and visible every moment. The chant still 
continued, the perspiration began to roll from the singer's 
face, gradually the hidden object took upon itself a shape 
and bulk that raised the shawl in its centre some five or six 
inches. It was now unmistakably the outline of a small 
but perfect human figure, with extended arms and legs. 
One or two of us turned pale, there was a feeling of general 
uneasiness, until the editor broke the silence by a gibe that, 
poor as it was, was received with spontaneous enthusiasm. 
Then the chant suddenly ceased, Wang arose, and, with a 
quick, dexterous movement, stripped both shawl and silk 
away, and discovered, sleeping peacefully upon my hand- 
kerchief, a tiny Chinese baby ! 

The applause and uproar which followed this revelation 
ought to have satisfied Wang, even if his audience was a 
small one; it was loud enough to awaken the baby — a 
pretty little boy about a year old, looking like a Cupid cut 
out of sandalwood. He was whisked away almost as 
mysteriously as he appeared. When Hop Sing returned 
my handkerchief to me with a bow, I asked if the juggler 
was the father of the baby. "No, sabe !" said the imper- 
turbable Hop Sing, taking refuge in that Spanish form of 
non-committalism so common in CaHfornia. 

" But does he have a new baby for every performance ? *' 
I asked. 



Wa7t LeCy the Pagan. 2 1 t 

*' Perhaps ; who knows ? " 

" But what will become of this one ? " 

"Whatever you choose, gentlemen," replied Hop Sing, 
with a courteous inclination; "it was born here — you are 
its godfathers." 

There were two characteristic peculiarities of any Cali- 
fornian assemblage in 1856 : it was quick to take a hint, 
and generous to the point of prodigality in its response to 
any charitable appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious 
the individual, he could not resist the infection of sympathy. 
I doubled the points of my handkerchief into a bag, dropped 
a coin into it, and, without a word, passed it to the judge. 
He quietly added a twenty-dollar gold piece, and passed it 
to the next ; when it was returned to me it contained over 
a hundred dollars. I knotted the money in the handker- 
chief, and gave it to Hop Sing. 

"For the baby, from its godfathers." 

" But what name ?" said the judge. There was a running 
fire of "Erebus," " Nox," " Plutus," "Terra Cotta," 
"Antseus," &c., &c. Finally the question was referred to 
our host. 

" Why not keep his own name," he said quietly — " Wan 
Lee?" And he did. 

And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of Friday the 5th 
of March 1856, born into this veracious chronicle. 

The last forme of the " Northern Star" for the 19th of 
July 1865 — the only daily paper published in Klamath 
County — had just gone to press, and at three a.m. I was 
putting aside my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to 
going home, when I discovered a letter lying under some 
sheets of paper which I must have overlooked. The enve- 
lope was considerably soiled, it had no post-mark, but I had 
no difficulty in recognising the hand of my friend Hop 
Sing. I opened it hurriedly and read as follows : — 



212 Wan Lee, the Pagan, 

" My dear Sir, — I do not know whether the bearer will 
suit you, but unless the office of * devil ' in your newspaper 
is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities 
required. He is very quick, active, and intelligent ; under- 
stands English better than he speaks it, and makes up for 
any defect by his habits of observation and imitation. You 
have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will 
repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue. ^Biit you 
certainly know him already ; you are one of his godfathers, 
for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of Wang the con- 
jurer, to whose performances I had the honour to introduce 
you ? But, perhaps, you have forgotten it. ' • 

" I shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton,-: 
thence by express to your town. If you can use^hlrn 
there, you will do me a favour, and probably save his Ijfe;,' 
which is at present in great peril from the hands of the;- 
younger members of your Christian and highly-civilised 
race who attend the enlightened schools in San Fran- 
cisco. 

" He has acquired some singular habits and customs frotn 
his experience of Wang's profession, which he followed for 
some years, until he became too large to go in a hat, or be 
produced from his father's sleeve. The money you left 
with me has been expended on his education ; he has gone 
through the Tri-literal Classics, but, I think, without much 
benefit. He knows but Httle of Confucius, and absolutely 
nothing of Meucius. Owing to the negligence of his 
father, he associated, perhaps, too much with American 
children. 

"I should have answered your letter before, by post, 
but I thought that Wan Lee himself would be a better 
messenger for this. 

"Yours respectfully, 

"Hop Sing.'' 



Wan Lee, the Pagan. 213 

And this was the long-delayed answer to my letter to 
Hop Sing. But where was ''the bearer"? How was the 
letter delivered ? I summoned hastily the foreman, printers, 
and office-boy, but without eliciting anything ; no one had 
seen the letter delivered, nor knew anything of the bearer. 
A few days later I had a visit from my laundry-man, 
AhRi. 

"You wantee debbil? All lightee; me catchee him." 

He returned in a few moments with a bright-looking 
Chinese boy, about ten years old, with whose appearance 
and general intelligence I was so greatly impressed, that I 
engaged him on the spot. When the business was con- 
. eluded, I asked his name. 

" Wan Lee," said the boy. 

" What ! Are you the boy sent out by Hop Sing ? 
What the devil do you mean by not coming here before, 
and how did you deliver that letter ? " 

Wan Lee looked at me and laughed. " Me pitchee in 
top side window." 

I did not understand. He looked for a moment per- 
plexed, and then, snatching the letter out of my hand, ran 
down the stairs. After a moment's pause, to my great 
astonishment, the letter came flying in at the window, 
circled twice around the room, and then dropped gently like 
a bird upon my table. Before I had got over my surprise 
Wan Lee reappeared, smiled, looked at the letter and then 
at me, said, '' So, John," and then remained gravely silent. 
I said nothing further, but it was understood that this was 
his first official act. 

His next performance, I grieve to say, was not attended 
with equal success. One of our regular paper-carriers fell 
sick, and, at a pinch. Wan Lee was ordered to fill his place. 
To prevent mistakes he was shown over the route the 
previous evening, and supplied at about daylight with the 



214 Wan Lee, the Pagan, 

usual number of subscribers' copies. He returned after an 
hour, in good spirits and without the papers. He had 
dehvered them all, he said. 

Unfortunately for Wan Lee, at about eight o'clock indig- 
nant subscribers began to arrive at the office. They had 
received their copies ; but how ? In the form of hard- 
pressed cannon balls, delivered by a single shot and a 
mere tour de force through the glass of bedroom windows. 
They had received them full in the face, like a base ball, 
if they happened to be up and stirring \ they had received 
them in quarter sheets, tucked in at separate windows; 
they had found them in the chimney, pinned against the 
door, shot through attic windows, delivered in long slips 
through convenient keyholes, stuffed into ventilators, and 
occupying the same can with the morning's milk. One 
subscriber, who waited for some time at the office door, to 
have a personal interview with Wan Lee (then comfortably 
locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears of rage in his 
eyes, that he had been awakened at five o'clock by a most 
hideous yelling below his windows ; that on rising, in great 
agitation, he was startled by the sudden appearance of the 
" Northern Star," rolled hard and bent into the form of 
a boomerang or East Indian club, that sailed into the 
window, described a number of fiendish circles in the 
room, knocked over the light, slapped the baby's face, 
"took" him (the subscriber) "in the jaw," and then 
returned out of the window, and dropped helplessly in the 
area. During the rest of the day wads and strips of soiled 
paper, purporting to be copies of the "Northern Star" of 
that morning's issue, were brought indignantly to the office* 
An admirable editorial on "The Resources of Humboldt 
County," which I had constructed the evening before, and 
which, I have reason to believe, might have changed the 
whole balance of trade during the ensuing year, and left 



Wan Lee, the Pagan. 215 

San Francisco bankrupt at her wharves, was in this way 
lost to the public. 

It was deemed advisable for the next three weeks to 
keep Wan Lee closely confined to the printing-office and 
the purely mechanical part of the business. Here he 
developed a surprising quickness and adaptability, winning 
even the favour and goodwill of the printers and foreman, 
who at first looked upon his introduction into the secrets of 
their trade as fraught with the gravest political significance. 
He learned to set type readily and neatly, his wonderful 
skill in manipulation aiding him in the mere mechanical 
act, and his ignorance of the language confining him 
simply to the mechanical effort — confirming the printer's 
axiom that the printer who considers or follows the ideas 
of his copy makes a poor compositor. He would set up 
deliberately long diatribes against himself, composed by his 
fellow-printers, and hung on his hook as copy, and even 
such short sentences as " Wan Lee is the devil's own imp," 
"Wan Lee is a Mongolian rascal," and bring the proof to 
me with happiness beaming from every tooth and satisfac- 
tion shining in his huckleberry eyes. 

It was not long, however, before he learned to retaliate 
on his mischievous persecutors. I remember one instance 
in which his reprisal came very near involving me in a 
serious misunderstanding. Our foreman's name was 
Webster, and Wan Lee presently learned to know and 
recognise the individual and combined letters of his name. 
It was during a political campaign, and the eloquent and fiery 
Colonel Starbottle, of Siskiyou, had delivered an effective 
speech, which was reported especially for the " Northern 
Star." In a very sublime peroration Colonel Starbottle had 
said, " In the language of the godlike Webster, I repeat," 
— and here followed the quotation, which I have forgotten. 
Now, it chanced that Wan Lee, looking over the galley 



2 1 6 Wan Lee J the Pagan. 

after it had been revised, saw the name of his chief per- 
secutor, and, of course, imagined the quotation his. After 
the forme was locked up, Wan Lee took advantage of 
Webster's absence to remove the quotation, and substitute 
a thin piece of lead, of the same size as the type, engraved 
with Chinese characters, making a sentence which, I had 
reason to believe, was an utter and abject confession of the 
incapacity and offensiveness of the Webster family generally, 
and exceedingly eulogistic of Wan Lee himself personally. 

The next morning's paper contained Colonel Starbottle's 
speech in full, in which it appeared that the " godlike " 
Webster had on one occasion uttered his thoughts in 
excellent but perfectly enigmatical Chinese. The rage of 
Colonel Starbottle knew no bounds. I have a vivid recol- 
lection of that admirable man walking into my office and 
demanding a retraction of the statement. 

" But, my dear sir," I asked, " are you willing to deny, 
over your own signature, that Webster ever uttered such a 
sentence ? Dare you deny that, with Mr. Webster's well- 
known attainments, a knowledge of Chinese might not have 
been among the number? Are you willing to submit a 
translation suitable to the capacity of our readers, and deny, 
upon your honour as a gentleman, that the late Mr. Web- 
ster ever uttered such a sentiment? If you are, sir, I am 
willing to publish your denial." 

The Colonel was not, and left, highly indignant. 

Webster, the foreman, took it more coolly. Happily he 
was unaware that for two days after, Chinamen from the 
laundries, from the gulches, from the kitchens, looked in 
the front office door with faces beaming with sardonic de- 
light ; that three hundred extra copies of the " Star" were 
ordered for the wash-houses on the river. He only knew that 
during the day Wan Lee occasionally went off into convul- 
sive spasms, and that he was obliged to kick him into con- 



Wan Lee, the Pagan, 2 1 7 

sciousness again. A week after the occurrence I called Wan 
Lee into my office. 

"Wan," I said gravely, "I should like you to give 
me, for my own personal satisfaction, a translation of that 
Chinese sentence which my gifted countryman, the late 
godhke Webster, uttered upon a public occasion." Wan 
Lee looked at me intently, and then the slightest pos- 
sible twinkle crept into his black eyes. Then he repUed, 
with equal gravity — 

" Mishtel Webstel, — he say : ' China boy makee me belly 
much foolee. China boy makee me heap sick.' " Which I 
have reason to think was true. 

But I fear I am giving but one side, and not the best, of 
Wan Lee's character. As he imparted it to me, his had 
been a hard life. He had known scarcely any childhood — 
he had no recollection of a father or mother. The conjurer 
Wang had brought him up. He had spent the first seven 
years of his life in appearing from baskets, in dropping out 
of hats, in climbing ladders, in putting his little limbs out 
of joint in posturing. He had lived in an atmosphere of 
trickery and deception ; he had learned to look upon man- 
kind as dupes of their senses ; in fine, if he had thought at 
all, he would have been a sceptic, if he had been a little 
older, he would have been a cynic, if he had been older still, 
he would have been a philosopher. As it was,iie was a 
little imp ! A good-natured imp it was, too — an imp 
whose moral nature had never been awakened, an imp up 
for a holiday, and willing to try virtue as a diversion. I 
don't know that he had any spiritual nature ; he was very 
superstitious : he carried about with him a hideous little 
porcelain god, which he was in the habit of alternately revil- 
ing and propitiating. He was too intelligent for the 
commoner Chinese vices of stealing or gratuitous lying. 
Whatever discipline he practised was taught by his intellect. 



2i8 Wan Lee, the Pagan, 

I am inclined to think that his feelings were not altogether 
unimpressible — although it was almost impossible to extract 
an expression from him — and I conscientiously believe he 
became attached to those that were good to him. What he 
might have become under more favourable conditions than 
the bondsman of an over-worked, under-paid literary man, 
I don't know ; I only know that the scant, irregular, impul- 
sive kindnesses that I showed him were gratefully received. 
He was very loyal and patient — two qualities rare in the 
average American servant. He was like Maivolio, "sad 
and civil" with me ; only once, and then under great provo- 
cation, do I remember of his exhibiting any impatience. It 
was my habit, after leaving the office at night, to take him 
with me to my rooms, as the bearer of any supplemental or 
happy after-thought in the editorial way, that might occur 
to me before the paper went to press. One night I had 
been scribbling away past the usual hour of dismissing Wan 
Lee, and had become quite oblivious of his presence in a 
chair near my door, when suddenly I became aware of a 
voice saying, in plaintive accents, something that sounded 
like " Chy Lee." 

I faced around sternly. 

"What did you say?" 

" Me say, ' Chy Lee.' " 

"Weill?" I said impatiently. 

"You sabe, 'How do, John?'" 

"Yes." 

" You sabe, ' So long, John ? ' " 

"Yes." 

"Well, ' Chy Lee' allee same !" 

I understood him quite plainly. It appeared that " Chy 
Lee " was a form of " good-night," and that Wan Lee was 
anxious to go home. But an instinct of mischief which I 
fear I possessed in common with him, impelled me to act 



Wan Lee^ the Pagan. 219 

as if oblivious of the hint. I muttered something about not 
understanding him, and again bent over my work. In a 
few minutes I heard his wooden shoes pattering pathetically 
over the floor. I looked up. He was standing near the 
door. 

" You no sabe, ' Chy Lee ?' " 

" No," I said sternly. 

" You sabe muchee big foolee ! — allee same ! " 

And with this audacity upon his lips he fled. The next 
morning, however, he was as meek and patient as before, 
and I did not recall his offence. As a probable peace- 
offering, he blacked all my boots — a duty never required 
of him — including a pair of buff deer-skin slippers and an 
immense pair of horseman's jack-boots, on which he indulged 
his remorse for two hours. 

I have spoken of his honesty as being a quality of his 
intellect rather than his principle, but I recall about this time 
two exceptions to the rule. I was anxious to get some fresh 
eggs, as a change to the heavy diet of a mining town, and 
knowing that Wan Lee's countrymen were great poultry 
raisers, I applied to him. He furnished me with them 
regularly every morning, but refused to take any pay, saying 
that the man did not sell them — a remarkable instance of 
self-abnegation, as eggs were then worth half a dollar apiece. 
One morning, my neighbour, Foster, dropped in upon me at 
breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his own ill fortune, 
as his hens had lately stopped laying, or wandered off in the 
bush. Wan Lee, who was present during our colloquy, 
preserved his characteristic sad taciturnity. When my 
neighbour had gone, he turned to me with a slight chuckle — 
" Flostel's hens — Wan Lee's hens — allee same ! " His other 
offence was more serious and ambitious. It was a season 
of great irregularities in the mails, and Wan Lee had heard 
me deplore the delay in the delivery of my letters and 



2 20 Wa?i Lee, the Pagan. 

newspapers. On arriving at my office one day, I was amazed 
to find my table covered with letters, evidently just from 
the post-office, but unfortunately not one addressed to me. 
I turned to Wan Lee, who was surveying them with a calm 
satisfaction, and demanded an explanation. To my horror 
he pointed to an empty mail-bag in the corner, and said — 
*' Postman he say ' No lettee, John — no lettee, John.' Post- 
man plentee lie ! Postman no good. Me catchee lettee last 
night — allee same ! " Luckily it was still early ; the mails 
had not been distributed ; I had a hurried interview with 
the Postmaster, and Wan Lee's bold attempt at robbing the 
U. S. Mail was finally condoned, by the purchase of a new 
mail-bag, and the whole affair thus kept a secret. 

If my liking for my little pagan page had not been suffi- 
cient, my duty to Hop Sing was enough to cause me to 
take Wan Lee with me when I returned to San Francisco, 
after my two years' experience with the "Northern Star." 
I do not think he contemplated the change with pleasure. 
I attributed his feelings to a nervous dread of crowded 
public streets — when he had to go across town for me on 
an errand, he always made a long circuit of the outskirts — 
to his dislike for the discipline of the Chinese and English 
school to which I proposed to send him, to his fondness for 
the free, vagrant life of the mines, to sheer wilfulness ! 
That it might have been a superstitious premonition did not 
occur to me until long after. 

Nevertheless it really seemed as if the opportunity I had 
long looked for and confidently expected had come — the 
opportunity of placing Wan Lee under gently restraining 
influences, of subjecting him to a life and experience that 
would draw out of him what good my superficial care and 
ill-regulated kindness could not reach. Wan Lee was placed 
at the school of a Chinese missionary — an intelligent and 
kind-hearted clergyman, who had shown great interest in 



Wan Lee, the Pagan, 221 

the boy, and who, better than all, had a wonderful faith in 
him. A home was found for him in the family of a widow, 
who had a bright and interesting daughter about two years 
younger than Wan Lee. It was this bright, cheery, innocent 
and artless child that touched and reached a depth in the 
boy's nature that hitherto had been unsuspected — that 
awakened a moral susceptibility which had lain for years 
insensible alike to the teachings of society or the ethics of 
the theologian. 

These few brief months, bright with a promise that we 
never saw fulfilled, must have been happy ones to Wan Lee. 
He worshipped his little friend with something of the same 
superstition, but without any of the caprice, that he bestowed 
upon his porcelain pagan god. It was his delight to walk 
behind her to school, carrying her books — a service always 
fraught with danger to him from the little hands of his 
Caucasian Christian brothers. He made her the most 
marvellous toys, he would cut out of carrots and turnips 
the most astonishing roses and tulips, he made Hfelike 
chickens out of melon-seeds, he constructed fans and kites, 
and was singularly proficient in the making of dolls' paper 
dresses. On the other hand she played and sang to him, 
taught him a thousand little prettinesses and refinements 
only known to girls, gave him a yellow ribbon for his 
pig-tail, as best suiting his complexion, read to him, showed 
him wherein he was original and valuable, took him to 
Sunday School with her, against the precedents of the 
school, and, small-womanlike, triumphed. I wish I could 
add here, that she effected his conversion, and made him 
give up his porcelain idol, but I am telling a true story, and 
this little girl was quite content to fill him with her own 
Christian goodness, without letting him know that he was 
changed. So they got along very well together — this little 
Christian girl with her shining cross hanging around her 



2 22 Wan Lee, the Pagan, 

plump, white, little neck, and this dark little pagan, with 
his hideous porcelain god hidden away in his blouse. 

There were two days of that eventful year which will 
long be remembered in San Francisco — two days when a 
mob of her citizens set upon and killed unarmed, defence- 
less foreigners, because they were foreigners and of another 
race, religion, and colour, and worked for what wages 
they could get. There were some public men so timid, 
that, seeing this, they thought that the end of the world 
had come ; there were some eminent statesmen whose 
names I am ashamed to write here, who began to think 
that the passage in the Constitution which guarantees 
civil and religious liberty to every citizen or foreigner was 
a mistake. But there were also some men who were not 
so easily frightened, and in twenty-four hours we had 
things so arranged that the timid men could wring their 
hands in safety, and the eminent statesmen utter their 
doubts without hurting anybody or anything. And in the 
midst of this I got a note from Hop Sing, asking me to 
come to him immediately. 

I found his warehouse closed and strongly guarded by 
the police against any possible attack of the rioters. Hop 
Sing admitted me through a barred grating with his usual 
imperturbable calm, but, as it seemed to me, with more 
than his usual seriousness. Without a word he took my 
hand and led me to the rear of the room, and thence down- 
stairs into the basement. It was dimly lighted, but there 
was something lying on the floor covered by a shawl. As 
I approached he drew the shawl away with a sudden ges- 
ture, and revealed Wan Lee, the Pagan, lying there dead ! 

Dead, my reverend friends, dead ! Stoned to death in 
the streets of San Francisco, in the year of grace, eighteen 
hundred and sixty-nine, by a mob of half-grown boys and 
Christian school-children ! 



Wan Lee, the Pagan. 223 

As I put my hand reverently upon his breast, I felt some- 
thing crumbling beneath his blouse. I looked inquiringly 
at Hop Sing. He put his hand between the folds of silk 
and drew out something with the first bitter smile I had 
ever seen on the face of that pagan gentleman. 

It was Wan Lee's porcelain god, crushed by a stone 
from the hands of those Christian iconoclasts I 



( 224 ) 



9n Jpeire00 of Eeti Dog* 

fc The first intimation given of the eccentricity of, the testa- 
tor was, I think, in the spring of 1854. He was at that 
time in possession of a considerable property, heavily 
mortgaged to one friend, and a wife of some attraction, 
on whose affections another friend held an encumbering 
lien. One day it was found that he had secretly dug, or 
caused to be dug, a deep trap before the front door of 
his dwelling, into which a few friends, in the course of the 
evening, casually and familiarly dropped. This circum- 
stance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence of 
a certain humour in the man, which might eventually get 
into literature, although his wife's lover — a man of quick 
discernment, whose leg was broken by the fall — took other 
views. It was some weeks later, that, while dining with 
certain other friends of his wife, he excused himself from 
the table to quietly reappear at the front window with a 
three-quarter-inch hydraulic pipe, and a stream of water 
projected at the assembled company. An attempt was 
made to take public cognisance of this ; but a majority of 
the citizens of Red Dog, who were not at the dinner, 
decided that a man had a right to choose his own methods 
of diverting his company. Nevertheless, there were some 
hints of his insanity ; his wife recalled other acts clearly 
attributable to dementia; the crippled lover argued from 
his own experience that the integrity of her limbs could 



An Heiress of Red Dog. 225 

only be secured by leaving her husband's house ; and the 
mortgagee, fearing a further damage to his property, fore- 
closed. But here the cause of all this anxiety took matters 
into his own hands, and disappeared. 

When we next heard from him, he had, in some myste- 
rious way, been relieved alike of his wife and property, and 
was living alone at Rockville, fifty miles away, and editing 
a newspaper. But that originality he had displayed when 
dealing with the problems of his own private life, when 
apphed to, politics in the columns of the " Rockville Van- 
guard," was singularly unsuccessful. An amusing exaggera- 
tion, purporting to be an exact account of the manner in 
which the opposing candidate had murdered his Chinese 
laundryman, was, I regret to say, answered only by assault 
and battery. A gratuitous and purely imaginative descrip- 
tion of a great religious revival in Calamas, in which the 
sheriff of the county — a notoriously profane sceptic — was 
alleged to have been the chief exhorter, resulted only in the 
withdrawal of the county advertising from the paper. In 
the midst of this practical confusion he suddenly died. It 
was then discovered, as a crowning proof of his absurdity, 
that he had left a will, bequeathing his entire effects to a 
freckle-faced maid-servant at the Rockville Hotel. But that 
absurdity became serious when it was also discovered that 
among these effects were a thousand shares in the " Rising 
Sun Mining Co.," which, a day or two after his demise, and 
while people were still laughing at his grotesque benefaction, 
suddenly sprang into opulence and celebrity. Three millions 
of dollars was roughly estimated as the value of the estate 
thus wantonly sacrificed ! For it is only fair to state, as a 
just tribute to the enterprise and energy of that young and 
thriving settlement, that there was not probably a single 
citizen who did not feel himself better able to control the 
deceased humorist's property. Some had expressed a 

VOL. III. P 



226 An Heiress of Red Dog. 

doubt of their ability to support a family ; others had felt 
perhaps too keenly the deep responsibility resting upon them 
when chosen from the panel as jurors, and had evaded their 
public duties ; a few had declined office and a low salary ; 
but no one shrank from the possibility of having been called 
upon to assume the functions of Peggy Moffat — the heiress. 
The will was contested. First by the widow, who, it now 
appeared, had never been legally divorced from the deceased; 
next by four of his cousins, who awoke, only too late, to a 
consciousness of his moral and pecuniary worth. But the 
humble legatee — a singularly plain, unpretending, unedu- 
cated Western girl — exhibited a dogged pertinacity in claim- 
ing her rights. She rejected all compromises. A rough 
sense of justice in the community, while doubting her ability 
to take care of the whole fortiftie, suggested that she ought 
to be content with three hundred thousand dollars. '^ She's 
bound to throw even that away on some derned skunk of a 
man, natoorally, but three millions is too much to give a chap 
for makin' her onhappy. It's offering a temptation to cussed- 
ness." The only opposing voice to this counsel came from 
the sardonic lips of Mr. Jack Hamlin. " Suppose," .sug- 
gested that gentleman, turning abruptly on the speaker — 
" suppose, when you won twenty thousand dollars of me last 
Friday night — suppose that instead of handing you over the 
money as I did — suppose Fd got up on my hind legs and 
said, ' Look yer. Bill Wethersbee, you're a damned fool. 
If I give ye that twenty thousand you'll throw it away in 
the first skingame in 'Frisco, and hand it over to the first 
short cardsharp you'll meet. There's a thousand — enough 
for you to fling away — take it and get ! ' Suppose what I'd 
said to you was the frozen truth, and you'd know'd it — • 
would that have been the square thing to play on you ? " 
But here Wethersbee quickly pointed out the inefficiency of 
the comparison by stating that he had won the money fairly 



An Heiress of Red Dog, 227 

with a stake. " And how do you know," demanded Hamlin 
savagely, bending his black eyes on the astounded casuist — 
" how do you know that the gal hezn't put down a stake ? " 
The man stammered an unintelligible reply. The gambler 
laid his white hand on Wethersbee's shoulder. *' Look yer, 
old man," he said, " every gal stakes her ivJiole pile — you 
can bet your life on that — whatever's her little game. If 
she took to keerds instead of her feelings — if she'd put up 
'chips' instead o' body and soul, she'd bust every bank 
'twixt this and 'Frisco ! You hear me ? " 

Somewhat of this idea was conveyed, I fear not quite 
as sentimentally, to Peggy Moffat herself. The best legal 
wisdom of San Francisco retained by the widow and rela- 
tives, took occasion, in a private interview with Peggy, to 
point out that she stood in||he quasi-criminal attitude of 
having unlawfully practised upon the affections of an insane 
elderly gentleman, with a view of getting possession of his 
property, and suggested to her that no vestige of her moral 
character would remain after the trial — if she persisted in 
forcing her claims to that issue. It is said that Peggy, on 
hearing this, stopped washing the plate she had in her hands, 
and, twisting the towel around her fingers, fixed her small 
pale blue eyes at the lawyer. 

" And ez that the kind o' chirpin' the critters keep up ?" 

" I regret to say, my dear young lady," responded the 
lawyer, " that the world is censorious. I must add," he 
continued, with engaging frankness, "that we professional 
lawyers are apt to study the opinion of the world — and 
that such will be the theory of — our side." 

*' Then," said Peggy stoutly, " ez I allow I've got to go 
into Court to defend my character, I might as well pack 
in them three millions too." 

There is hearsay evidence that Peg added to this speech 
a wish and desire to " bust the crust " of her traducers, and, 



228 Ail Heiress of Red Dog. 

remarking that "that was the kind of hair-pin" she was, 
closed the conversation with an unfortunate accident to the 
plate, that left a severe contusion on the legal brow of her 
companion. But this story, popular in the bar-rooms and 
gulches, lacked confirmation in higher circles. Better au- 
thenticated was the legend related of an interview with her 
own lawyer. That gentleman had pointed out to her the 
advantage of being able to show some reasonable cause for 
the singular generosity of the testator. 

"Although," he continued, "the law does not go back 
of the will for reason or cause for its provisions, it would be 
a strong point with the judge and jury — particularly if the 
theory of insanity were set up — for us to show that the act 
was logical and natural. Of course you have — I speak con- 
fidently, Miss Moffat — certaii^^'deas of your own why the 
late Mr. Byways was so singularly generous to you." 

" No, I haven't," said Peg decidedly. 

" Think again. Had he not expressed to you — you 
understand that this is confidential between us, although I 
protest, my dear young lady,- that I see no reason why it 
should not be made public — had he not given utterance 
to sentiments of a nature consistent with some future 
matrimonial relations ? " But here Miss Peg's large mouth, 
which had been slowly relaxing over her irregular teeth, 
stopped him. 

" If you mean he wanted to marry me — No ! " 

" I see. But were there any conditions — of course you 
know the law takes no cognisance of any not expressed in 
the will ; but still, for the sake of mere corroboration of the 
bequest — do you know of any conditions on which he gave 
you the property ? " 

" You mean, did he want anything in return ?'* 

** Exactly, my dear young lady." 

Peg's face on one side turned a deep magenta colour, on 



A n Heiress of Red Dog. 229 

the other a lighter cherry, while her nose was purple, and 
her forehead an Indian red. To add to the effect of this 
awkward and discomposing dramatic exhibition of embar- 
rassment, she began to wipe her hands on her dress, and sat 
silent. 

" I understand," said the lawyer hastily. " No matter — 
the conditions were fulfilled." 

" No," said Peg amazedly ; " how could they be until he 
was dead ? " 

It was the lawyer's turn to colour and grow embarrassed. 

" He did say something, and make some conditions," con- 
tinued Peg, with a certain firmness through her awkward- 
ness ; " but that's nobody's business but mine and his'n. 
And it's no call o' yours or theirs." 

" But, my dear Miss Mo^^ if these very conditions were 
proofs of his right mind, you surely would not object to 
make them known, if only to enable you to put yourself in 
a condition to carry them out." 

" But," said Peg cunningly, '' 'spose you and the Court 
didn't think 'em satisfactory ? 'Spose you thought 'em queer 1 
Eh?" 

With this helpless limitation on the part of the defence, 
the case came to trial. Everybody remembers it : how for 
six weeks it was the daily food of Calaveras County ; how 
for six weeks the intellectual and moral and spiritual com- 
petency of Mr. James Byways to dispose of his property 
was discussed with learned and formal obscurity in the 
Court, and with unlettered and independent prejudice by 
camp-fires and in bar-rooms. At the end of that time, 
when it was logically established that at least nine-tenths of 
the population of Calaveras were harmless lunatics, and 
everybody else's reason seemed to totter on its throne, an 
exhausted jury succumbed one day to the presence of Peg 
in the Court-room. It was not a prepossessing presence at 



2 3 O A 71 Heiress of Red Dog, 

any time ; but the excitement, and an injudicious attempt 
to ornament herself, brought her defects into a glaring relief 
that was almost unreal. Every freckle on her face stood 
out and asserted itself singly ; her pale blue eyes, that gave 
no indication of her force of character, were weak and 
wandering, or stared blankly at the judge ; her over-sized 
head, broad at the base, terminating in the scantiest pos- 
sible light-coloured braid in the middle of her narrow 
shoulders, was as hard and uninteresting as the wooden 
spheres that topped the railing against v.hich she sat. The 
jury, who for six weeks had had her described to them by 
the plaintiffs as an arch, wily enchantress, who had sapped 
the failing reason of Jim Byways, revolted to a man. There 
was something so appallingly gratuitous in her plainness, 
that it was felt that three miljbns was scarcely a compen- 
sation for it. "Ef that money was give to her, she earned 
it sure, boys ; it wasn't no softness of the old man," said 
the foreman. When the jury retired, it was felt that she 
had cleared her character. When they re-entered the room 
with their verdict, it was known that she had been awarded 
three millions damages for its defamation. 

She got the money. But those who had confidently 
expected to see her squander it were disappointed. On the 
contrary, it was presently whispered that she was exceed- 
ingly penurious. That admirable woman, Mrs. Stiver of 
Red Dog, who accompanied her to San Francisco to assist 
her in making purchases, was loud in her indignation. " She 
cares more for two bits ^ than I do for five dollars. She 
wouldn't buy anything at the ' City of Paris ' because it 
was ' too expensive,' and at last rigged herself out, a perfect 
guy, at some cheap slop-shops in Market Street. And after 
all the care Jane and me took of her, giving up our time 
and experience to her, she never so much as made Jane a 

^ i.e,, Twenty-five cents. 



An Heiress of Red Dog. 231 

single present." Popular opinion, which regarded Mrs. Stiver's 
attention as purely speculative, was not shocked at this 
unprofitable denouement; but when Peg refused to give 
anything to clear the mortgage off the Presbyterian Church, 
and even declined to take shares in the Union Ditch, con- 
sidered by many as an equally sacred and safe investment, 
she began to lose favour. Nevertheless, she seemed to be 
as regardless of public opinion as she had been before the 
trial ; took a small house, in which she lived with an old 
woman who had once been a fellow-servant on, apparently, 
terms of perfect equality, and looked after her money. I 
wish I could say that she did this discreetly, but the fact 
is, she blundered. The same dogged persistency she had 
displayed in claiming her rights was visible in her unsuccess- 
ful ventures. She sunk two hundred thousand dollars in a 
worn-out shaft originally projected by the deceased testator. 
She prolonged the miserable existence of the " Rockville 
Vanguard" long after it had ceased to interest even its 
enemies ; she kept the doors of the Rockville Hotel open 
when its custom had departed ; she lost the co-operation 
and favour of a fellow capitalist through a trifling misunder- 
standing in which she was derelict and impenitent ; she had 
three lawsuits on her hands that could have been settled 
for a trifle. I note these defects to show that she was by 
no means a heroine. I quote her affair with Jack Fohnsbee 
to show that she was scarcely the average woman. 

That handsome, graceless vagabond had struck the out- 
skirts of Red Dog in a cyclone of dissipation which left him 
a stranded but still rather interesting wreck in a ruinous 
cabin not far from Peg Moffat's virgin bower. Pale, crippled 
from excesses, with a voice quite tremulous from sympathetic 
emotion more or less developed by stimulants, he lingered 
languidly, with much time on his hands, and only a few 
neighbours. In this fascinating kind of general deshabille 



232 An Heiress of Red Dog. 

of morals, dress, and the emotions, he appeared before Peg 
Moffat. More than that, he occasionally limped with her 
through the settlement. The critical eye of Red Dog took 
in the singular pair ; Jack — voluble, suffering, apparently 
overcome by remorse, conscience, vituperation, and disease j 
and Peg, open-mouthed, high-coloured, awkward, yet de- 
lighted ; and the critical eye of Red Dog, seeing this, winked 
meaningly at Rockville. No one knew what passed between 
them. But all observed that one summer day Jack drove 
down the main street of Red Dog in an open buggy with 
the heiress of that town beside him. Jack, albeit a trifle 
shaky, held the reins with something of his old dash ; and 
Mistress Peggy, in an enormous bonnet with pearl-coloured 
ribbons, a shade darker than her hair, holding in her short 
pink-gloved fingers a bouquet of yellow roses, absolutely 
glowed crimson in distressful gratification over the dash- 
board. So these two fared on — out of the busy settlement, 
into the woods, against the rosy sunset. Possibly it was not 
a pretty picture ; nevertheless, as the dim aisles of the solemn 
pines opened to receive them, miners leaned upon their 
spades, and mechanics stopped in their toil to look after 
them. The critical eye of Red Dog, perhaps from the sun, 
perhaps from the fact that it had itself once been young and 
dissipated, took on a kindly moisture as it gazed. 

The moon was high when they returned. Those who had 
waited to congratulate Jack on this near prospect of a 
favourable change in his fortunes were chagrined to find 
that, having seen the lady safe home, he had himself de- 
parted from Red Dog. Nothing was to be gained from 
Peg, who, on the next day and ensuing days, kept the even 
tenor of her way, sunk a thousand or two more in unsuccess- 
ful speculation, and made no change in her habits of 
personal economy. Weeks passed without any apparent 
sequel to this romantic idyl. Nothing was known definitely 



A n Heiress of Red Dog . 233 

until Jack, a month later, turned up in Sacramento, with a 
billiard cue in his hand, and a heart overcharged with 
indignant emotion. "I don't mind saying to you gentle- 
men, in confidence," said Jack, to a circle of sympathising 
players, " I don't mind telling you regarding this thing, that 
I was as soft on that freckled-faced, red-eyed, tallow-haired 
gal as if she'd been — a — a — an actress. And I don't mind 
saying, gentlemen, that, as far as I understand women, she 
was just as soft on me ! You kin laugh, but it's so. One 
day I took her out buggy-riding — in style, too — and out on 
the road I offered to do the square thing — ^just as if she'd 
been a lady — offered to marry her then and there ! And 
what did she do ? " said Jack with an hysterical laugh — 
" why, blank it all ! offered jne twenty -Jive dollars a zveek 
allowance — pay to be stopped when I wasn't at home I " 
The roar of laughter that greeted this frank confession was 
broken by a quiet voice asking, "And what did j^z/ say ? " 

" Say ? " screamed Jack, " I just told her to with her 

money." "They say," continued the quiet voice, "that you 

asked her for the loan of two hundred and fifty dollars to 

get you to Sacramento — and that you got it ? " " Who says 

so?" roared Jack — "show me the blank liar." There was 

a dead silence. Then the possessor of the quiet voice, Mr. 

Jack Hamlin, languidly reached under the table, took 'the 

chalk, and rubbing the end of his billiard cue, began with 

'; gentle gravity. " It was an old friend of mine in Sacramento, 

I a man with a wooden leg, a game eye, three fingers on his 

I right hand, and a consumptive cough. Being unable natu- 

' rally to back himself, he leaves things to me. So for the 

sake of argument," continued Hamlin, suddenly laying down 

I his cue, and fixing his wicked black eyes on the speaker 

"say it's me .^" 

I I am afraid that this story, whether truthful or not, did 

^ not tend to increase Peg's popularity in a community where 



234 -^^ Heiress of Red Dog, 

recklessness or generosity condoned for the absence of all 
the other virtues ; and it is possible also that Red Dog was 
no more free from prejudice than other more civilised but 
equally disappointed match-makers. Likewise, during the 
following year, she made several more foolish ventures and 
lost heavily. In fact, a feverish desire to increase her store 
at almost any risk seemed to possess her. At last it was 
announced that she intended to reopen the infelix Rockville 
Hotel, and keep it herself Wild as this scheme appeared 
in theory, when put into practical operation there seemed 
to be some chance of success. Much, doubtless, was owing 
to her practical knov/ledge of hotel-keeping, but more tO' 
her rigid economy and untiring industry. The mistress of 
millions, she cooked, washed, waited on table, made the 
beds, and laboured like a common menial. Visitors were 
attracted by this novel spectacle. The income of the house 
increased as their respect for the hostess lessened. No 
anecdote of her avarice was too extravagant for current 
belief. It was even alleged that she had been known to 
carry the luggage of guests to their rooms, that she might 
anticipate the usual porter's gratuity. She denied herself 
the ordinary necessaries of life. She was poorly clad, she 
was ill-fed — but the hotel was making money. 

A few hinted at insanity; others shook their heads, 
and said a curse was entailed on the property. It was be- 
lieved also, from her appearance, that she could not long 
survive this tax on her energies, and already there was dis- 
cussion as to the probable final disposition of her property. , 
It was the particular fortune of Mr. Jack Hamlin to be able 
to set the world right on this and other questions regarding 
her. 

A stormy December evening had set in when he chanced 
to be a guest of the Rockville Hotel. He had during the 
past week been engaged in the prosecution of his noble 



An Heiress of Red Dog, 235 

profession at Red Dog, and had, in the graphic language of 
a coadjutor, " cleared out the town, except his fare in the 
pockets of the stage driver ; " the Red Dog " Standard " had 
bewailed his departure in playful obituary verse, beginning, 
"Dear Johnny, thou hast left us," wherein the rhymes "bereft 
us" and "deplore" carried a vague alkision to " a thousand 
dollars more." A quiet contentment naturally suffused his 
personality, and he was more than usually lazy and deliberate 
in his speech. At midnight, when he was about to retire, 
he was a little surprised, however, by a tap on his door^ 
followed by the presence of Mistress Peg Moffat — heiress, 
and landlady of Rockville Hotel. 

Mr. Hamlin, despite his previous defence of Peg, had no 
liking for her. His fastidious taste rejected her uncomeli- 
ness ; his habits of thought and life were all antagonistic to 
what he had heard of her niggardliness and greed. As she 
stood there, in a dirty calico wrapper, still redolent with the 
day's cuisine, crimson with embarrassment and the recent 
heat of the kitchen range, she certainly was not an alluring 
apparition. Happily for the lateness of the hour, her 
loneliness, and the infelix reputation of the man before her, 
she was at least a safe one. And I fear the very conscious- 
ness of this scarcely relieved her embarrassment. 

" I wanted to say a few words to ye alone, Mr. Hamlin," 
she began, taking an unoffered seat on the end of his port- 
manteau, " or I shouldn't hev' intruded. But it's the only 
time I can ketch you, or you me, for I'm down in the 
kitchen from sun-up till now." 

She stopped awkwardly, as if to listen to the wind which 
was rattling against the windows, and spreading a film of 
rain against the opaque darkness without. Then, smooth- 
ing her wrapper over her knees, she remarked, as if opening a 
desultory conversation, " Thar's a power of rain outside." 

Mr. Hamlin's only response to this meteorological obser- 



236 An Heiress of Red Dog. 

vation was a yawn, and a preliminary tug at his coat as he 
began to remove it. 

" I thought ye couldn't mind doin' me a favour," continued 
Peg, with a hard, awkward laugh, " partik'ly seein' ez folks 
allowed you'd sorter been a friend o' mine, and hed stood 
up for me at times when you hedn't any partikler call to do 
it I hevn't," she continued, looking down on her lap, and 
following with her finger and thumb a seam of her gown — " I 
hevn't so many friends ez slings a kind word for me these 
times that I disremember them." Her under lip quivered 
a little here, and after vainly hunting for a forgotten hand- 
kerchief, she finally lifted the hem of her gown, wiped her 
snub nose upon it, but left the tears still in her eyes as she 
raised them to the man. 

Mr. Hamlin, who had by this time divested himself of 
his' coat, stopped unbuttoning his waistcoat, and looked at 
her. 

" Like ez not thar'll be high water on the North Fork, ef 
this rain keeps on," said Peg, as if apologetically, looking 
toward the window. 

The other rain having ceased, Mr. Hamlin began to un- 
button his waistcoat again. 

" I wanted to ask ye a favour about Mr. — about — Jack 
Folinsbee," began Peg again, hurriedly. " He's ailin' agin', 
and is mighty low. And he's losin' a heap o' money here 
and thar, and mostly to you. You cleaned him out of two 
thousand dollars last night — all he had." 

" Well," said the gambler coldly. 

" Well, I thought ez you woz a friend o' mine, I'd ask ye 
to let up a little on him," said Peg, with an affected laugh. 
" You kin do it. Don't let him play with ye." 

*' Mistress Margaret Moffat," said Jack, with lazy delibera- 
tion, taking off his watch and beginning to wind it up, *'ef 
you're that much stuck after Jack Folinsbee you kin keep 



A n Heiress of Red Dog, 237 

him off of me much easier than I kin. You're a rich woman ! 
Give him enough money to break my bank, or break himself 
for good and all — but don't keep him foolin' round me, in 
hopes to make a raise. It don't pay, Mistress Moffat — it 
don't pay ! " 

A finer nature than Peg's would have misunderstood or 
resented the gambler's slang, and the miserable truths that 
underlay it. But she comprehended him instantly, and sat 
hopelessly silent. 

" Ef you'll take my advice," continued Jack, placing his 
watch and chain under his pillow, and quietly unloosing his 
cravat, "you'll quit this yer foolin', marry that chap, and 
hand over to him the money and the money-makin' that's 
killin' you. He'll get rid of it soon enough. I don't say 
this because /expect to git it, for when he's got that much of 
a raise, he'll make a break for 'Frisco, and lose it to some 
first-class sport there. I don't say neither that you mayn't 
be in luck enough to reform him. I don't say neither — and 
it's a derned sight more likely — that you mayn't be luckier 
yet — and he'll up and die afore he gits rid of your money. 
But I do say you'll make him happy 7ioiu — and ez I reckon 
you're about ez badly stuck after that chap ez I ever 
saw any woman, you won't be hurtin' your own feelin's 
either ! " 

The blood left Peg's face as she looked up. " But that's 
why I can't give him the money — and he won't marry me 
without it." 

Mr. Hamlin's hand dropped from the last button of his 
waistcoat. "Can't — give — him — the — money?" he repeated 
slowly. 

"No." 

"Why?" 

" Because — because I love him." 

Mr. Hamlin rebuttoned his waistcoat, and sat down 



238 An Heiress of Red Dog, 

patiently on the bed. Peg rose, and awkwardly drew the 
portmanteau a little bit nearer to him. 

'' When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she began, 
looking cautiously around, " he left it to me on conditions. 
Not conditions ez was in his ivritten will — but conditions ez 
was spoken. A promise I made him in this very room, 
Mr. Hamlin — this very room, and on that very bed you're 
sittin' on, in which he died." 

Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superstitious. He 
rose hastily from the bed, and took a chair beside the 
window. The wind shook it as if the discontented spirit of 
Mr. Byways were without, reinforcing his last injunction. 

" I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverishly. 
'* He was a man ez hed suffered. All that he loved — wife, 
fammerly, friends — had gone back on him ! He tried to 
make light of it afore folk ; but with me, being a poor gal, 
he let himself out. I never told anybody this — I don't 
know why he told me — I don't know," continued Peg with 
a sniffle, " why he wanted to make me unhappy too. But 
he made me promise that if he left me his fortune I'd never 
— never^ so help me God — never share it with any man or 
woman that I loved ! I didn't think it would be hard to 
keep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin, for I was very poor, 
and hedn't a friend nor a living bein' that was kind to me 
but him'' 

" But you've as good as broken your promise already," said 
Hamlin ; "you've given Jack money — as I know." 

" Only what I made myself ! Listen to me, Mr. Hamlin. 
When Jack proposed to me, I offered him about what I kal- 
kilated I could earn myself. When he went away, and was 
sick and in trouble, I came here and took this hotel. I knew 
that by hard work I could make it pay. Don't laugh at me, 
please. I did work hard, and did make it pay — without 
takin' one cent of the fortin'. And all I made, workin' by 



A 71 Heiress of Red Dog. 239 

night and day, I gave to him ! I did, Mr. Hamhn. I ain't 
so hard to him as you think ; though I might be kinder, I 
know." 

Mr. Hamlin rose, deUberately resumed his coat, watch, 
hat, and overcoat. When he was completely dressed again, 
he turned to Peg. 

"Do you mean to say that you've been givin' all the 
money you make here to this A i first-class cherubim ? " 

" Yes, but he didn't know where I got it. O Mr. Hamlin, 
he didn't know that ! " 

" Do I understand you, that he's bin bucking agin faro 
with the money that you raised on hash ? And you makin' 
the hash?" 

" But he didn't know that— he wouldn't hev took it if I'd 

told him." 

» No, he'd hev' died fust ! " said Mr. Hamlin gravely. 
" Why, he's that sensitive— is Jack Folinsbee— that it nearly 
kills him to take money even of me. But where does this 
angel reside when he isn't fightin' the tiger, and is, so to 
speak, visible to the naked eye ? " 

«< He— he— stops here," said Peg, with an awkward 

blush. 

" I see. Might I ask the number of his room— or should 
I be a— disturbing him in his meditations ? " continued Jack 
Hamlin with grave politeness. 

" Oh, then you'll promise ? And you'll talk to him, and 
make him promise ? " 

" Of course," said Hamlin quietly. 

"And you'll remember he's sick— very sick? His room's 
No. 44, at the end of the hall. Perhaps I had better go 
with you ? " 

« I'll find it." 

" And you won't be too hard on him ]" 

" I'll be a father to him," said Hamlin demurely, as he 



240 A?i Heiress of Red Dog. 

opened the door and stepped into the halL But he hesi- 
tated a moment, and then turned and gravely held out his 
hand. Peg took it timidly; he did not seem quite in 
earnest — and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicated 
nothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next 
moment was gone. 

He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough 
from within, and a querulous protest, answered his knocL 
Mr. Hamlin entered without further ceremony. A sicken- 
ing smell of drugs, a palpable flavour of stale dissipation, 
and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half dressed, 
extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was, 
for an instant, startled. There were hollow circles round 
the sick mans eyes, there was palsy in his trembling limbs, 
there was dissolution in his feverish breath. 

" ^^^lat'5 up ? " he asked huskily and nervously. 

" I am, and I want_>'^a to get up toe." 

" I can't. Jack. I'm regularly done up." He reached 
his shaking hand towards a glass half-fiUed with suspicious, 
pungent-smelling liquid, but Mr. Hamlin stayed it 

" Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you 
lost?" 

"Yes." 

" Well, get up and marry that woman downstairs." 

Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically. 

" She won't give it to me.** 

"No, but /will." 

« You?'' 

"Yes." 

Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, 
trembling and with difficult^', to his swollen feet. Hamlin 
eyed him narrowly, and then bade him lie down again. 
" To-morrow will do," he said, " and then " 

" If I don't " 



An Heiress of Red Dog. 241 

" If you don't," responded Hamlin, " why, I'll just wade 
in and cut you out ! " 

But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that pos- 
sible act of disloyalty. For in the night the already 
hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbee took flight on the 
wings of the south-east storm. When or how it happened, 
nobody knew. Whether this last excitement and the near 
prospect of matrimony, or whether an over-dose of ano- 
dyne had hastened his end, was never known. I only 
know that when they came to awaken him the next morn- 
ing, the best that was left of him — a face still beautiful 
and boylike — looked up tearful at the eyes of Peg Moffat. 
" It serves me right — it's a judgment," she said in a low 
whisper to Jack Hamlin, " for God knew that I'd broken 
my word and willed all my property to him." 

She did not long survive him. W'hether Mr. Hamlin 
ever clothed with action the suggestion indicated in his 
speech to the lamented Jack that night, is not on record. 
He was always her friend, and on her demise became her 
executor. But the bulk of her property was left to a dis- 
tant relation of handsome Jack Folinsbee, and so passed 
out of the control of Red Dog for ever. 



VOL. III. 



( 242 ) 



2rf)e S^m on tf\z 15mt% 
I. 

He lived beside a river that emptied into a great ocean. 
The narrow strip of land that lay between him and the 
estuary was covered at high tide by a shining film of water, 
at low tide with the cast-up offerings of sea and shore. Logs 
yet green, and saplings washed away from inland banks, 
battered fragments of wrecks and orange crates of bamboo, 
broken into tiny rafts yet odorous with their lost freight, 
lay in long successive curves — the fringes and over-lappings 
of the sea. At high noon the shadow of a seagull's wing, 
or a sudden flurry and gray squall of sandpipers, themselves 
but shadows, was all that broke the monotonous glare of 
the level sands. 

He had lived there alone for a twelvemonth. Although 
but a few miles from a thriving settlement, during that time 
his retirement had never been intruded upon, his seclusion 
remained unbroken. In any other community he might 
have been the subject of rumour or criticism, but the miners 
at Camp Rogue and the traders at Trinidad Head, themselves 
individual and eccentric, were profoundly indifferent to all 
other forms of eccentricity or heterodoxy that did not come 
in contact with their own. And certainly there was no form 
of eccentricity less aggressive than that of a hermit, had they 
chosen to give him that appellation. But they did not even 
do that, probably from lack of interest or perception. To 



The Man on the Beach. 243 

the various traders who supplied his small wants he was 
known as " Kernel," "Judge," and " Boss." To the general 
public " The Man on the Beach " was considered a suffi- 
ciently distinguishing title. His name, his occupation, rank, 
or antecedents, nobody cared to inquire. Whether this 
arose from a fear of reciprocal inquiry and interest, or from 
the profound indifference before referred to, I cannot say. 

He did not look like a hermit. A man yet young, erect, 
well-dressed, clean-shaven, with a low voice, and a smile 
half-melancholy, half-cynical, was scarcely the conventional 
idea of a solitary. His dwelling, a rude improvement on a 
fisherman's cabin, had all the severe exterior simplicity of 
frontier architecture, but within it was comfortable and 
wholesome. Three rooms— a kitchen, a living-room, and a 
bedroom — were all it contained. 

He had lived there long enough to see the dull monotony 
of one season lapse into the dull monotony of the other. 
The bleak north-west trade-winds had brought him mornings 
of staring sunlight and nights of fog and silence. The 
warmer south-west trades had brought him clouds, rain, and 
the transient glories of quick grasses and ordorous beach 
blossoms. But summer or winter, v/et or dry season, on 
one side rose always the sharply-defined hills with their 
changeless background of evergreens ; on the other side 
stretched always the illimitable ocean as sharply defined 
against the horizon, and as unchanging in its hue. The 
onset of spring and autumn tides, some changes among his 
feathered neighbours, the footprints of certain wild animals 
along the river's bank, and the hanging out of parti-coloured 
signals from the wooded hillside far inland, helped him to 
record the slow months. On summer afternoons, when the 
sun sank behind a bank of fog that, moving solemnly shore- 
ward, at last encompassed him and blotted out sea and sky, 
his isolation was complete. Tlie damp gray sea that flowed 



244 ^^^^ Man on the Beach. 

above and around and about him always seemed to shut 
out an intangible world beyond, and to be the only real 
presence. The booming of breakers scarce a dozen rods 
from his dwelling was but a vague and unintelligible sound, 
or the echo of something past for ever. Every morning 
when the sun tore away the misty curtain he awoke, dazed 
and bewildered, as upon a new world. The first sense of 
oppression over, he came to love at last this subtle spirit 
of oblivion ; and at night, when its cloudy wings were folded 
over his cabin, he would sit alone with a sense of security 
he had never felt before. On such occasions he was apt 
to leave his door open, and listen as for footsteps ; for what 
might not come to him out of this vague, nebulous world 
beyond ? Perhaps even she ; for this strange solitary was 
not insane nor visionary. He was never in spirit alone. 
For night and day, sleeping or waking, pacing the beach 
or crouching over his driftwood fire, a woman's face was 
always before him — the face for whose sake and for cause 
of whom he sat there alone. He saw it in the morning 
sunlight ; it was her white hands that were lifted from the 
crested breakers ; it was the rustling of her skirt when the 
sea wind swept through the beach grasses ; it was the 
loving whisper of her low voice when the long waves sank 
and died among the sedge and rushes. She was ^s 
omnipresent as sea and sky and level sand. Hence, when 
the fog wiped them away, she seemed to draw closer to 
him in the darkness. On one or two more gracious nights 
in midsummer, when the influence of the fervid noonday 
sun was still felt on the heated sands, the warm breath of 
the fog touched his cheek as if he had been hers, and the 
tears started to his eyes. 

Before the fogs came — for he arrived there in winter — 
he had found surcease and rest in the steady glow of a 
lighthouse upon the little promontory a league below his 



The Man 07t the Beach. 245 

habitation. Even on the darkest nights, and in the 
tumults of storm, it spoke to him of a patience that was 
enduring and a steadfastness that was immutable. Later 
on he found a certain dumb companionship in an uprooted 
tree, which, floating down the river, had stranded hopelessly 
upon his beach, but in the evening had again drifted away. 
Rowing across the estuary a day or two afterward, he 
recognised the tree again from a "blaze" of the settler's axe 
still upon its trunk. He was not surprised a week later to 
find the same tree in the sands before his dwelling, or that 
the next morning it should be again launched on its pur- 
poseless wanderings. And so, impelled by wind or tide, 
but always haunting his seclusion, he would meet it 
voyaging up the river at the flood, or see it tossing among 
the breakers on the bar, but always with the confidence of 
its returning sooner or later to an anchorage beside him. 
After the third month of his self-imposed exile, he was 
forced into a more human companionship, that was brief 
but regular. He was obliged to have menial assistance. 
While he might have eaten his bread " in sorrow " carelessly 
and mechanically, if it had been prepared for him, the 
occupation of cooking his own food brought the vulgarity 
and materialness of existence so near to his morbid sensi- 
tiveness that he could not eat the meal he had himself 
prepared. He did not yet wish to die, and when starva- 
tion or society seemed to be the only alternative, he chose 
the latter. An Indian woman, so hideous as to scarcely 
suggest humanity, at stated times performed for him these 
offices. When she did not come, which was not infrequent, 
he did not eat. 

Such was the mental and physical condition of the Man 
on the Beach on January i, 1869. 

It was a still, bright day, following a week of rain and 



246 The Man on the Beach, 

wind. Low down the horizon still lingered a few white 
flecks — the flying squadrons of the storm — as vague as 
distant sails. Southward the harbour bar whitened occa- 
sionally but lazily ; even the turbulent Pacific swell stretched 
its length wearily upon the shore. And toiling from the 
settlement over the low sand dunes, a carriage at last halted 
half a mile from the solitary's dwelling. 

"I reckon ye'll hev to git out here," said the driver, 
pulling up to breathe his panting horses. " Ye can't git 
any nigher." 

There was a groan of execration from the interior of the 
vehicle, a hysterical little shriek, and one or two shrill 
expressions of feminine disapprobation, but the driver 
moved not. At last a masculine head expostulated from 
the window : " Look here ; you agreed to take us to the 
house. Why, it's a mile away at least ! " 

'' Thar, or tharabouts, I reckon," said the driver, coolly 
crossing his legs on the box. 

" It's no use talking ; / can never walk through this sand 
and horrid glare," said a female voice quickly and im- 
peratively. Then, apprehensively, " Well of all the places ! " 

"Well, I never!" 

"This does exceed everything." 

" It's really too idiotic for anything." 

It was noticeable that while the voices betrayed the 
difference of age and sex, they bore a singular resemblance 
to each other, and a cprtain querulousness of pitch that was 
dominant. 

" I reckon I've gone about as fur as I allow to go with 
them bosses," continued the driver suggestively, "and as 
time's vallyble, ye'd better onload." 

"The wretch does not mean to leave us here alone?" 
said a female voice in shrill indignation. " You'll wait for 
us, driver ? " said a masculine voice confidently. 



The Man on the Beach. 247 

" How long ? " asked the driver. 

There was a hurried consultation within. The words 
" Might send us packing," " May take all night to get him 
to listen to reason," " Bother ! whole thing over in ten 
minutes," came from the window. The driver meanwhile 
had settled himself back in his seat, and whistled in patient 
contempt of a fashionable fare that didn't know its own mind 
nor destination. Finally, the masculine head was thrust 
out, and, with a certain potential air of judicially ending a 
difficulty, said — 

" You're to follow us slowly, and put up your horses in 
the stable or barn until we want you." 

An ironical laugh burst from the driver. " Oh yes — in 
the stable or barn — in course. But, my eyes sorter failin' 
me, mebbee, now, some ev you younger folks will kindly 
pint out the stable or barn of the Kernel's. Woa! — will 
ye ? — woa ! Give me a chance to pick out that there barn 
or stable to put ye in ! " This in arch confidence to the 
horses, who had not moved. 

Here the previous speaker, rotund, dignified, and elderly, 
alighted indignantly, closely followed by the rest of the 
party, two ladies and a gentleman. One of the ladies was 
past the age, but not the fashion, of youth, and her Parisian 
dress clung over her wasted figure and well-bred bones 
artistically if not gracefully ; the younger lady, evidently 
her daughter, was crisp and pretty, and carried off the 
aquiline nose and aristocratic emaciation of her mother 
with a certain piquancy and a dash that was charming. 
The gentleman was young, thin, with the family charac- 
teristics, but otherwise indistinctive. 

With one accord they all faced directly toward the spot 
indicated by the driver's whip. Nothing but the bare, bleak, 
rectangular outlines of the cabin of the Man on the Beach 
met their eyes. All else was a desolate expanse, unrelieved 



248 The Man on the Beach. 

by any structure higher than the tussocks of scant beach 
grass that clothed it. They were so utterly helpless that 
the driver's derisive laughter gave way at last to good 
humour and suggestion. " Look yer," he said finally, *' I 
don't know ez it's your fault you don't know this kentry ez 
well ez you do Yurup ; so I'll drag this yer team over to 
Robinson's on the river, give the horses a bite, and then 
meander down this yer ridge, and wait for ye. Ye'll see me 
from the Kernel's." And without waiting for a reply, he 
swung his horses' heads toward the river, and rolled away. 

The same querulous protest that had come from the 
windows arose from the group, but vainly. Then followed 
accusations and recrimination. " It's your fault ; you might 
have written, and had him meet us at the settlement." 
"You wanted to take him by surprise!" "I didn't." 
" You know if I'd written that we were coming, he'd have 
taken good care to run away from us." '^ Yes, to some more 
inaccessible place." "There can be none worse than this," 
&c., &c. But it was so clearly evident that nothing was 
to be done but to go forward, that even in the midst of 
their wrangling they straggled on in Indian file toward the 
distant cabin, sinking ankle-deep in the yielding sand, 
punctuating their verbal altercation with sighs, and only 
abating it at a scream from the elder lady. 

« Where's Maria ? " 

" Gone on ahead ! " grunted the younger gentleman, in 
a bass voice, so incongruously large for him that it seemed 
to have been a ventriloquistic contribution by somebody 
else. 

It was too true. Maria, after adding her pungency to 
the general conversation, had darted on ahead. But alas ! 
that swift Camilla, after scouring the plain some two 
hundred feet with her demitrain, came to grief on an 
unbending tussock and sat down, panting but savage. As 



The Man on the Beach. 249 

they plodded wearily toward her, she bit her red lips, 
smacked them on her cruel httle white teeth Hke a festive 
and sprightly ghoul, and lisped : — 

" You do look so hke guys ! For all the world like 
those English shopkeepers we met on the Righi, doing the 
three-guinea excursion in their Sunday clothes !" 

Certainly the spectacle of these exotically plumed bipeds, 
whose fine feathers were already bedrabbled by sand and 
growing limp in the sea breeze, was somewhat dissonant 
with the rudeness of sea aqd sky and shore. A few gulls 
screamed at them ; a loon, startled from the lagoon, arose 
shrieking and protesting, with painfully extended legs, in 
obvious burlesque of the younger gentleman. The elder 
lady felt the justice of her gentle daughter's criticism, and 
retaliated with simple directness — 

"Your skirt is ruined, your hair is coming down, your 
hat is half off your head, and your shoes — in Heaven's 
name, Maria ! what have you done with your shoes ? " 

Maria had exhibited a slim stockinged foot from under 
her skirt. It was scarcely three fingers broad, with an arch 
as patrician as her nose. *' Somewhere between here and 
the carriage," she answered ; " Dick can run back and find 
it, while he is looking for your brooch, mamma. Dick's so 
obliging." 

The robust voice of Dick thundered, but the wasted 
figure of Dick feebly ploughed its way back, and returned 
with the missing buskin. 

" I may as well carry them in my hand like the market 
girls at Saumur, for we have got to wade soon," said Miss 
Maria, sinking her own terrors in the dehghtful contempla- 
tion of the horror in her parent's face, as she pointed to a 
shining film of water slowly deepening in a narrow swale in 
the sands between them and the cabin. 

*' It's the tide," said the elder gentleman. " If we intend 



250 The Man on the Beach. 

to go on we must hasten ; permit me, my dear madam,** 
and before she could reply he had lifted the astounded 
matron in his arms and made gallantly for the ford. The 
gentle Maria cast an ominous eye on her brother, who, 
with manifest reluctance, performed for her the same office. 
But that acute young lady kept her eyes upon the preced- 
ing figure of the elder gentleman, and seeing him suddenly 
and mysteriously disappear to his armpits, unhesitatingly 
threw herself from her brother's protecting arms — an 
action which instantly precipitated him into the water — 
and paddled hastily to the opposite bank, where she even- 
tually assisted in pulling the elderly gentleman out of the 
hollow into which he had fallen, and in rescuing her 
mother, who floated helplessly on the surface, upheld by 
her skirts, like a gigantic and variegated water-lily. Dick 
followed with a single gaiter. In another minute they were 
safe on the opposite bank. 

The elder lady gave way to tears ; Maria laughed hyste- 
rically ; Dick mingled a bass oath with the now audible 
surf ; the elder gentleman, whose florid face the salt water 
had bleached, and whose dignity seemed to have been 
washed away, accounted for both by saying he thought it 
was a quicksand. 

" It might have been," said a quiet voice behind them ; 
"you should have followed the sand-dunes half a mile 
farther to the estuary." 

They turned instantly at the voice. It was that of the Man 
on the Beach. They all rose to their feet and uttered 
together, save one, the single exclamation, "James !" The 
elder gentleman said, "Mr. North," and, with a slight 
resumption of his former dignity, buttoned his coat over 
his damp shirt front. 

There was a silence, in which the Man on the Beach 
looked gravely down upon them. If they had intended to 



The Man on the Beach. 251 

impress him by any suggestion of a gay, brilliant, and sen- 
suous world beyond in their own persons, they had failed, 
and they knew it. Keenly alive as they had always been 
to external prepossession, they felt that they looked forlorn 
and ludicrous, and that the situation lay in his hands. The 
elderly lady again burst into tears of genuine distress, 
Maria coloured over her cheek-bones, and Dick stared at 
the ground in sullen disquiet. 

" You had better get up," said the Man on the Beach, 
after a moment's thought, " and come up to the cabin. I 
cannot offer you a change of garments, but you can dry 
them by the fire." 

They all rose together, and again said in chorus, "James !" 
but this time with an evident effort to recall some speech or 
action previously resolved upon and committed to memory. 
The elder lady got so far as to clasp her hands and add, 
*' You have not forgotten us, James, O James ! " the 
younger gentleman to attempt a brusque "Why, Jim, old 
boy," that ended in querulous incoherence; the young 
lady to cast a half searching, half-coquettish look at him ; 
and the old gentleman to begin, " Our desire, Mr. North " 
— but the effort was futile. Mr. James North, standing 
before them with folded arms, looked from the one to the 
other. 

" I have not thought much of you for a twelvemonth," 
he said quietly, " but I have not forgotten you. Come ! " 

He led the way a few steps in advance, they following 
silently. In this brief interview they felt he had resumed 
the old dominance and independence, against which they 
had rebelled ; more than that, in this half failure of their 
first concerted action they had changed their querulous 
bickerings to a sullen distrust of each other, and walked 
moodily apart as they followed James North into his house. 
A fire blazed brightly on the hearth ; a few extra seats were 



252 The Man on the Beach. 

quickly extemporised from boxes and chests, and the elder 
lady, with the skirt of her dress folded over her knees — 
looking not unlike an exceedingly overdressed jointed doll — 
dried her flounces and her tears together. Miss Maria took 
in the scant appointments of the house in one single glance, 
and then fixed her eyes upon James North, who, the least 
concerned of the party, stood before them, grave and 
patiently expectant. 

"Well," began the elder lady in a high key, "after all 
this worry and trouble you have given us, James, haven't 
you anything to say? Do you know — have you the least 
idea what you are doing ? what egregious folly you are com- 
mitting? what everybody is saying? Eh? Heavens and 
earth ! do you know who I am ? " 

" You are my father's brother's widow, Aunt Mary," re- 
turned James quietly, " If I am committing any folly it 
only concerns myself; if I cared for what people said I 
should not be here ; if I loved society enough to appreciate 
its good report I should stay with it." 

" But they say you have run away from society to pine 
alone for a worthless creature — a woman who has used you, 
as she has used and thrown away others — a " 

" A woman," chimed in Dick, who had thrown himself 
on James's bed while his patent leathers were drying — " a 

woman that all the fellers know never intended " here, 

however, he met James North's eye, and muttering some- 
thing about " whole thing being too idiotic to talk about," 
relapsed into silence. 

" You know," continued Mrs. North, " that while we and 
all our set shut our eyes to your very obvious relations with 
that woman, and while I myself often spoke of it to others 
as a simple flirtation, and averted a scandal for your sake, 
and when the climax was reached, and she herself gave you 
an opportunity to sever your relations, and nobody need 



The Man on the Beach. 253 

have been wiser — and she'd have had all the blame — and 
it's only what she's accustomed to — you — you ! you, James 
North ! — you must nonsensically go, and, by this extrava- 
gant piece of idiocy and sentimental tomfoolery, let every- 
body see how serious the whole affair was, and how deep 
it hurt you ! and here in this awful place, alone — where 
you're half drowned to get to it, and are willing to be wholly 
drowned to get away ! Oh, don't talk to me ! I won't 
hear it — it's just too idiotic for anything ! " 

The subject of this outburst neither spoke nor moved a 
single muscle. 

*' Your aunt, Mr. North, speaks excitedly," said the elder 
gentleman; "yet I think she does not over-estimate the 
unfortunate position in which your odd fancy places you. 
I know nothing of the reasons that have impelled you to 
this step ; I only know that the popular opinion is that the 
cause is utterly inadequate. You are still young, with a 
future before you. I need not say how your present con- 
duct may imperil that. If you expected to achieve any 
good — even to your own satisfaction — by this conduct " • 

"Yes — if there was anything to be gained by it 1" broke 
in Mrs. North. 

" If you ever thought she'd come back ! — but that kind 

of woman don't. They must have change. Why " 

began Dick suddenly, and as suddenly lying down again. 

" Is this all you have come to say ? " asked James North, 
after a moment's patient silence, looking from one to the 
other. 

"All !" screamed Mrs. North; "is it not enough?" 

" Not to change my mind nor my residence at present," 
replied North coolly. 

" Do you mean to continue this folly all your life?" 

" And have a coroner's inquest, and advertisements and 
all the facts in the papers ? " 



254 ^'^^ Man on the Beach. 

" And have her read the melancholy details, and know 
that you were faithful and she was not ? " 

This last shot was from the gentle Maria, who bit her lips 
as it glanced from the immovable man. 

" I believe there is nothing more to say," continued North 
quietly. " I am willing to believe your intentions are as 
worthy as your zeal. Let us say no more," he added with 
grave weariness; "the tide is rising, and your coachman is 
signalling you from the bank." 

There was no mistaking the unshaken positiveness of the 
man, which was all the more noticeable from its gentle but 
utter indifference to the wishes of the party. He turned his 
back upon them as they gathered hurriedly around the elder 
gentleman, while the words, " He cannot be in his right 
mind," " It's your duty to do it," " It's sheer insanity," 
" Look at his eye ! " all fell unconsciously upon his ear. 

" One word more, Mr. North," said the elder gentleman 
a little portentously, to conceal an evident embarrassment. 
" It may be that your conduct might suggest to minds more 
practical than your own the existence of some aberration of 
the intellect — some temporary mania — that might force your 
best friends into a quasi-legal attitude of " 

"Declaring me insane," interrupted James North, with 
the slight impatience of a man more anxious to end a prolix 
interview than to combat an argument. " I think differently. 
As my aunt's lawyer, you know that within the last year I 
have deeded most of my property to her and her family. I 
cannot believe that so shrewd an adviser as Mr. Edmund 
Carter would ever permit proceedings that would invalidate 
that conveyance." 

Maria burst into a laugh of such wicked gratification that 
James North, for the first time, raised his eyes with some- 
thing of interest to her face. She coloured under them, 
but returned his glance with another like a bayonet flash. 



The Man on the Beach. 255 

The party slowly moved toward the door, James North 
following. 

"Then this is your final answer?" asked Mrs. North, 
stopping huperiously on the threshold. 

" I beg your pardon ? " queried North, half abstractedly. 

" Your final answer ? " 

"Oh, certainly." 

Mrs. North flounced away a dozen rods in rage. This 
was unfortunate for North. It gave them the final attack 
in detail. Dick began : " Come along ! You know you 
can advertise for her with a personal down there, and the 
old woman wouldn't object as long as you were careful and 
put in an appearance now and then ! " 

As Dick hmped away, Mr. Carter thought, in confidence, 
that the whole matter — even to suit Mr. North's sensitive 
nature — might be settled there. " She evidently expects you 
to return. My opinion is that she never left San Francisco. 
You can't tell anything about these women." 

With this last sentence on his indifferent ear, James North 
seemed to be left free. Maria had rejoined her mother ; 
but as they crossed the ford, and an intervening sand-hill 
hid the others from sight, that piquant young lady suddenly 
appeared on the hill and stood before him. 

" And you're not coming back ? " she said directly. 

" No." 

" Never ? " 

" I cannot say." 

" Tell me ! what is there about some w^omen to make men 
love them so ? " 

" Love," replied North quietly. 

" No, it cannot be — it is not that ! " 

North looked over the hill and round the hill, and looked 
bored. 

*' Oh, I'm going now. But one moment, Jim ! I didn't 



256 The Man on the Beach. 

want to come. They dragged me here. Good-bye." She 
raised a burning face and eyes to his. He leaned forward 
and imprinted the perfunctory, cousinly kiss of the period 
upon her cheek. 

" Not that way," she said angrily, clutching his wrists with 
her long, thin fingers ; " you shan't kiss me in that way, 
James North." 

With the faintest, ghost-like passing of a twinkle in the 
corners of his sad eyes, he touched his lips to hers. With 
the contact, she caught him round the neck, pressed her 
burning lips and face to his forehead, his cheeks, the very 
curves of his chin and throat, and — with a laugh was gone. 



II. 

Had the kinsfolk of James North any hope that their visit 
might revive some lingering desire he still combated to enter 
once more the world they represented, that hope would have 
soon died. Whatever effect this episode had upon the soli- 
tary — and he had become so self-indulgent of his sorrow, 
and so careless of all that came between him and it, as to meet 
opposition with profound indifference — the only appreciable 
result was a greater attraction for the solitude that protected 
him, and he grew even to love the bleak shore and barren 
sands that had proved so inhospitable to others. There 
was a new meaning to the roar of the surges, an honest, 
loyal sturdiness in the unchanging persistency of the uncouth 
and blustering trade-winds, and a mute fidelity in the shining 
sands, treacherous to all but him. With such bandogs to 
lie in wait for trespassers, should he not be grateful ? 

If no bitterness was awakened by the repeated avowal of 
the unfaithfulness of the woman he loved, it was because he 
had always made the observation and experience of others 



The Man on the Beach. 257 

give way to the dominance of his own insight. No array of 
contradictory facts ever shook his bcHef or unbelief; like 
all egotists, he accepted them as truths controlled by a larger 
truth of which he alone was cognisant. His simplicity, 
which was but another form of his egotism, was so complete 
as to baffle ordinary malicious cunning, and so he was 
spared the experience and knowledge that come to a lower 
nature, and help to debase it. 

Exercise and the stimulus of the few wants that sent him 
hunting or fishing kept up his physical health. Never a 
lover of rude freedom or outdoor life, his sedentary predi- 
lections and nice tastes kept him from lapsing into barbarian 
excess ; never a sportsman, he followed the chase with no 
feverish exultation. Even dumb creatures found out his 
secret, and at times, stalking moodily over the upland, the 
brown deer and elk would cross his path without fear or 
molestation, or, idly lounging in his canoe within the river 
bar, flocks of wild fowl would settle within stroke of his 
listless oar. And so the second winter of his hermitage 
drew near its close, and with it came a storm that passed 
into local history, and is still remembered. It uprooted 
giant trees along the river, and with them the tiny rootlets 
of the life he was idly fostering. 

The morning had been fitfully turbulent, the wind veer- 
ing several points south and west, with suspicious lulls, 
unlike the steady onset of the regular south-west trades. 
High overhead the long manes of racing cirro stratus 
streamed with flying gulls and hurrying water-fowl ; plover 
piped incessantly, and a flock of timorous sandpipers sought 
the low ridge of his cabin, while a wrecking crew of curlew 
hastily manned the uprooted tree that tossed wearily beyond 
the bar. By noon the flying clouds huddled together in 
masses, and then were suddenly exploded in one vast opaque 
sheet over the heavens. The sea became gray, and sud- 

VOL. III. R 



258 The Man on the Beach. 

denly wrinkled and old. There was a dumb, half-articulate 
cry in the air — rather a confusion of many sounds, as of 
the booming of distant guns, the clangour of a bell, the 
trampling of many waves, the creaking of timbers and 
soughing of leaves, that sank and fell ere you could yet 
distinguish them. And then it came on to blow. For two 
hours it blew strongly. At the time the sun should have 
set the wind had increased ; in fifteen minutes darkness 
shut down, even the white sands lost their outlines, and sea 
and shore and sky lay in the grip of a relentless and aggres- 
sive power. 

Within his cabin, by the leaping light of his gustyfire, North 
sat alone. His first curiosity passed, the turmoil without no 
longer carried his thought beyond its one converging centre. 
She had come to him on the wings of the storm, even as she 
had been borne to him on the summer fog-cloud. Now 
and then the wind shook the cabin, but he heeded it not. 
He had no fears for its safety ; it presented its low gable to 
the full fury of the wind that year by year had piled, and 
was even now piling, protecting buttresses of sand against 
it. With each succeeding gust it seemed to nestle more 
closely to its foundations, in the whirl of flying sand that 
rattled against its roof and windows. It was nearly mid- 
night when a sudden thought brought him to his feet. 
What if she were exposed to the fury of such a night as this ? 
What could he do to help her ? Perhaps even now, as he 

sat there idle, she Hark ! was not that a gun — No ? 

Yes, surely ! 

He hurriedly unbolted the door, but the strength of the 
wind and the impact of drifted sand resisted his efforts. 
With a new and feverish strength possessing him he forced 
it open wide enough to permit his egress, when the wind 
caught him as a feather, rolled him over and over, and then, 
grappling him again, held him down hard and fast against 



The Man on the Beach. 259 

the drift. Unharmed, but unable to move, he lay there, 
hearing the multitudinous roar of the storm, but unable to 
distinguish one familiar sound in the savage medley. At 
last he managed to crawl flat on his face to the cabin, and, 
refastening the door, threw himself upon his bed. 

He was awakened from a fitful dream of his cousin 
Maria. She with a supernatural strength seemed to be 
holding the door against some unseen, unknown power that 
moaned and strove without, and threw itself in despairing 
force against the cabin. He could see the lithe undulations 
of her form as she alternately yielded to its power, and 
again drew the door against it, coiling herself around the 
loghewn doorpost with a hideous, snake-like suggestion. 
And then a struggle and a heavy blow, which shook the 
very foundations of the structure, awoke him. He leaped 
to his feet, and into an inch of water ! By the flickering 
firelight he could see it oozing and dripping from the 
crevices of the logs and broadening into a pool by the 
chimney. A scrap of paper torn from an envelope was 
floating idly on its current. Was it the overflow of the 
backed-up waters of the river? He was not left long in 
doubt. Another blow upon- the gable of the house, and a 
torrent of spray leaped down the chimney, scattered the 
embers far and wide, and left him in utter darkness. Some 
of the spray clung to his lips. It was salt. The great 
ocean had beaten down the river bar and was upon him ! 

Was there aught to fly to ? No ! The cabin stood 
upon the highest point of the sandspit, and the low swale 
on one side crossed by his late visitors was a seething mass 
of breakers, while the estuary behind him was now the 
ocean itself. There was nothing to do but to wait. 

The very helplessness of his situation was, to a man of 
his peculiar temperament, an element of patient strength. 
The instinct of self-preservation was still strong in him, but 



26o The Man on the Beach, 

he had no fear of death, nor, indeed, any presentiment of it ; 
yet if it came, it was an easy solution of the problem that 
had been troubling him, and it wiped off the slate ! He 
thought of the sarcastic prediction of his cousin, and death 
in the form that threatened him was the obliteration of his 
home and even the ground upon which it stood. There 
would be nothing to record, no stain could come upon the 
living. The instinct that kept him true to her would tell 
her how he died ; if it did not, it was equally well. And 
with this simple fatalism his only belief, this strange man 
groped his way to his bed, lay down, and in a few moments 
was asleep. The storm still roared without. Once again 
the surges leaped against the cabin, but it was evident that 
the wind was abating with the tide. 

When he awoke it was high noon, and the sun was shining 
brightly. For some time he lay in a delicious languor, 
doubting if he was alive or dead, but feeHng through every 
nerve and fibre an exquisite sense of peace — a rest he had 
not known since his boyhood — a relief he scarcely knew 
from what. He felt that he was smiling, and yet his pillow 
was wet with the tears that glittered still on his lashes. The 
sand blocking up his doorway, he leaped lightly from his 
window. A few clouds were still sailing slowly in the 
heavens, the trailing plumes of a great benediction that lay 
on sea and shore. He scarcely recognised the familiar 
landscape ; a new bar had been formed in the river, and a 
narrow causeway of sand that crossed the lagoon and marches 
to the river bank and the upland trail seemed to bring him 
nearer to humanity again. He was conscious of a fresh, 
childlike delight in all this, and when, a moment later, he 
saw the old uprooted tree, pow apparently for ever moored 
and imbedded in the sand beside his cabin, he ran to it 
with a sense of joy. 

Its trailing roots were festooned with clinging seaweed 



The Man on the Beach. 261 

and the long, snaky, undulating stems of the sea-turnip ; 
and fixed between two crossing roots was a bamboo orange 
crate, almost intact. As he walked toward it he heard a 
strange cry, unlike anything the barren sands had borne 
before. Thinking it might be some strange sea-bird caught 
in the meshes of the seaweed, he ran to the crate and looked 
within. It was half filled with sea-moss and feathery algae. 
The cry was repeated. He brushed aside the weeds with 
his hands. It was not a wounded sea-bird, but a living 
human child ! 

As he lifted it from its damp enwrappings he saw that it 
was an infant eight or nine months old. How and when it 
had been brought there, or what force had guided that elfish 
cradle to his very door, he could not determine ; but it 
must have been left early, for it was quite warm, and its 
clothing almost dried by the blazing morning sun. To 
wrap his coat about it, to run to his cabin with it, to start 
out again with the appalling conviction that nothing could 
be done for it there, occupied some moments. His nearest 
neighbour was Trinidad Joe, a " logger," three miles up the 
river. He remembered to have heard vaguely that he was 
a man of family. To half strangle the child with a few 
drops from his whisky flask, to extricate his canoe from the 
marsh, and strike out into the river with his waif, was at 
least to do something. In half an hour he had reached the 
straggling cabin and sheds of Trinidad Joe, and from the 
few scanty flowers that mingled with the brushwood fence, 
and a surplus of linen fluttering on the line, he knew that 
his surmise as to Trinidad Joe's domestic establishment was 
correct. 

The door at which he knocked opened upon a neat, 
plainly-furnished room, and the figure of a bwxom woman 
of twenty-five. With an awkwardness new to him, North 
stammered out the circumstances of his finding the infant, 



262 The Man on the Beach, 

and the object of his visit. Before he had finished, the 
woman, by some feminine trick, had taken the child from 
his hands ere he knew it ; and when he paused, out of 
breath, burst into a fit of laughter. North tried to laugh 
too, but failed. 

When the woman had wiped the tears from a pair of 
very frank blue eyes, and hidden two rows of very strong 
white teeth again, she said — 

" Look yar ! You're that looney sort o' chap that lives 
alone over on the spit yonder, ain't ye ? " 

North hastened to admit all that the statement might 
imply. 

" And so ye've had a baby left ye to keep you company ? 
Lordy ! " Here she looked as if dangerously near a relapse, 
and then added, as if in explanation of her conduct — 

"When I saw ye paddlin' down here — you thet ez shy 
as elk in summer — I sez, ' He's sick.' But a baby — O 
Lordy!" 

For a moment North almost hated her. A woman who, 
in this pathetic, perhaps almost tragic, picture saw only a 
ludicrous image, and that image himself, was of another 
race than he had ever mingled with. Profoundly indifferent 
as he had always been to the criticism of his equals in 
station, the mischievous laughter of this illiterate woman 
jarred upon him worse than his cousin's sarcasm. It was 
with a little dignity that he pointed out the fact that at 
present the child needed nourishment. '' It's very young," 
he added. " I'm afraid it wants its natural nourishment." • 

" Whar is it to get it ? " asked the woman. 

James North hesitated, and looked around. There 
should be a baby somewhere ! there must be a baby som.e- 
where ! " I thought that you," he stammered, conscious of 

an awkward colouring, — " I— that is — I " He stopped 

short, for she was already cramming her apron into her 



The Man on the Beach. 263 

mouth, loo late, however, to stop the laugh that overflowed 
it. When she found her breath again, she said — 

" Look yar ! I don't wonder they said you was looney ! 
I'm Trinidad Joe's onmarried darter, and the only woman 
in this house. Any fool could have told you that. Now, 
ef you can rig us up a baby out o' them facts, I'd like to 
see it done." 

Inwardly furious but outwardly polite, James North 
begged her pardon, deplored his ignorance, and, with a 
courtly bow, made a movement to take the child. But 
the woman as quickly drew it away. 

" Not much," she said hastily. " What ! trust that poor 
critter to you ? No, sir ! Thar's more ways of feeding a 
baby, young man, than you knows on, with all your ' nat'ral 
nourishment.' But it looks kinder logy and stupid." 

North freezingly admitted that he had given the infant 
whisky as a stimulant. 

" You did ? Come, now, that ain't so looney after alh 
W^ell, I'll take the baby, and when dad comes home we'll 
see what can be done." 

North hesitated. His dishke of the woman was intense, 
and yet he knew no one else, and the baby needed instant 
care. Besides, he began to see the ludicrousness of his 
making a first call on his neighbours with a foundling to 
dispose of. She saw his hesitation, and said — 

" Ye don't know me, in course. Well, I'm Bessy Robin- 
son, Trinidad Joe Robinson's daughter. I reckon dad 
will give me a character if you want references, or any of 
the boys on the river." 

" I'm only thinking of the trouble I'm giving you. Miss 
Robinson, I assure you. Any expense you may incur " 

" Young man," said Bessy Robinson, turning sharply on 
her heel, and facing him with her black brows a little 
contracted, " if it comes to expenses, I reckon I'll pay you 



264 The Man on the Beach. 

for that baby, or not take it at all. But I don't know you 
well enough to quarrel with you on sight. So leave the 
child to me, and if you choose, paddle down here to- 
morrow; after sun up — the ride will do you good — and see 
it, and dad thrown in. Good-bye ! " and with one power- 
ful but well-shaped arm thrown around the child, and the 
other crooked at the dimpled elbow a little aggressively, 
she swept by James North and entered a bedroom, closing 
the door behind her. 

When Mr. James North reached his cabin it was dark. 
As he rebuilt his *e, and tried to rearrange the scattered 
and disordered furniture, and remove the debris of last 
night's storm, he was conscious for the first time of feeling 
lonely. He did not miss the child. Beyond the instincts 
of humanity and duty he had really no interest in its 
welfare or future. He was rather glad to get rid of it, he 
would have preferred to some one else, and yet she looked 
as if she were competent. And then came the reflection 
that since the morning he had not once thought of the 
woman he loved. The like had never occurred in his 
twelvemonth's solitude. So he set to work, thinking of 
her and of his sorrows, until the word "looney," in con- 
nection with his suffering, flashed across his memory. 
*' Looney ! " It was not a nice word. It suggested some- 
thing less than insanity ; something that might happen to 
a common, unintellectual sort of person. He remembered 
the loon, an ungainly feathered neighbour, that was popu- 
larly supposed to have lent its name to the adjective. 
Could it be possible that people looked upon him as one 
too hopelessly and uninterestingly afflicted for sympathy or 
companionship, too unimportant and common for even 
ridicule ; or was this but the coarse interpretation of that 
vulgar girl ? 

Nevertheless, the next morning " after sun up " James 



The Man 07i the Beach. 265 

North was at Trinidad Joe's cabin. That worthy proprietor 
himself — a long, lank man, with even more than the ordi- 
nary rural Western characteristics of ill-health, ill-feed- 
ing, and melancholy — met him on the bank, clothed in a 
manner and costume that was a singular combination of the 
frontiersman and the sailor. When North had again related 
the story of his finding the child, Trinidad Joe pondered. 

" It mout hev been stowed away in one of them crates 
for safe-keeping," he said, musingly, " and washed off the 
deck o' one o' them Tahiti brigs goin' down ler oranges. 
Leastways, it never got thar from these parts." 

" But it's a miracle its life was saved at all. It must 
have been some hours in the water." 

" Them brigs lays their course well inshore, and it was 
just mebbee a toss up if the vessel clawed off the reef at 
all ! And ez to the child keepin' up, why, dog my skin ! 
that's just the contrariness o' things," continued Joe, in 
sententious cynicism. " Ef an able seaman had fallen from 
the yard-arm that night he'd been sunk in sight o' the ship, 
and thet baby ez can't swim a stroke sails ashore, sound 
asleep, with the waves for a baby-jumper." 

North, who was half relieved, yet half-awkwardly dis- 
appointed at not seeing Bessy, ventured to ask how the 
child was doing. 

" She'll do all right now," said a frank voice above, and, 
looking up, North discerned the round arms, blue eyes, and 
white teeth of the daughter at the window. "She's all 
hunky, and has an appetite — ef she hezn't got her ' nat'ral 
nourishment.' Come, dad ! heave ahead, and tell the 
stranger what you and me allow we'll do, and don't stand 
there svvappin' lies with him." 

"Weel," said Trinidad Joe dejectedly, " Bess allows she 
can rar that baby and do justice to it. And I don't say — 
though I'm her father — that she can't. But when Bess 



266 The Man on the Beach. 

wants anything she wants it all, clean down ; no half- ways 
nor leavin's for her." 

" That's me ! go on, dad — you're chippin' in the same 
notch every time," said Miss Robinson with cheerful direct- 
ness. 

" Well, we agree to put the job up this way. We'll take 
the child and you'll give us a paper or writin' makin' over all 
your right and title. How's that?" 

Without knowing exactly why he did, Mr. North objected 
decidedly. 

" Do you think we won't take good care of it ? " asked 
Miss Bessy sharply. 

"That is not the question," said North a Httle hotly. 
" In the first place, the child is not mine to give. It has 
fallen into my hands as a trust — the first hands that re- 
ceived it from its parents. I do not think it right to allow 
any other hands to come between theirs and mine." 

Miss Bessy left the window. In another moment she 
appeared from the house, and, walking directly toward 
North, held out a somewhat substantial hand. " Good ! " 
she said, as she gave his fingers an honest squeeze. " You 
ain't so looney after all. Dad, he's right ! He shan't gin 
it up, but we'll go halves in it, he and me. He'll be father 
and I'll be mother 'till death do us part, or the reg'lar 
family turns up. Well — what do you say ? " 

More pleased than he dared confess to himself with the 
praise of this common girl, Mr. James North assented. 
Then would he see the baby? He would, and Trinidad 
Joe, having already seen the baby, and talked of the baby, 
and felt the baby, and indeed had the baby offered to him 
in every way during the past night, concluded to give some 
of his valuable time to logging, and left them together. 

Mr. North was obliged to admit that the baby was thriv- 
ing. He, moreover, listened with polite interest to the state- 



The Man on the Beach. 267 

ment that the baby's eyes were hazel, like his own ; that it 
had five teeth ; that she was, for a girl of that probable 
age, a robust child ; and yet Mr. North hngered. Finally, 
with his hand on the door-lock, he turned to Bessy and 
said — 

" May I ask you an odd question, Miss Robinson ? " 

"Goon." 

" Why did you think I was — ' looney ' ? " 

The frank Miss Robinson bent her head over the baby. 

"Why?" 

"Yes, why?" 

" Because you were looney." 

"Oh!" 

"But" 

««Yes" ■ 

"You'll get over it." 

And under the shallow pretext of getting the baby's 
food, she retired to the kitchen, where Mr. North had the 
supreme satisfaction of seeing her, as he passed the window, 
sitting on a chair with her apron over her head, shaking 
with laughter. 

For the next two or three days he did not visit the 
Robinsons, but gave himself up to past memories. On the 
third day he had — it must be confessed not without some 
effort — brought himself into that condition of patient sor- 
row which had been his habit. The episode of the storm 
and the finding of the baby began to fade, as had faded 
the visit of his relatives. It had been a dull, wet day, and 
he was sitting by his fire, when there came a tap at his 
door. " Flora," by which juvenescent name his aged 
Indian handmaid was known, usually announced her pre- 
sence with an imitation of a curlew's cry : it could not be 
her. He fancied he heard the trailing of a woman's dress 
against the boards, and started to his feet, deathly pale, 



268 The Man on the Beach. 

with a name upon his hps. But the door was impatiently 
thrown open, and showed Bessy Robinson ! And the 
baby ! 

With a feehng of relief he could not understand, he 
offered her a seat. She turned her frank eyes on him 
curiously. 

" You look skeert ! " 

" I was startled. You know I see nobody here ! " ■ 

" Thet's so. But look yar, do you ever use a doctor?" ^ 

Not clearly understanding her, he in turn asked, "Why?" 

" Cause you must rise up and get one now — thet's why. 
This yer baby of ours is sick. We don't use a doctor at 
our house, we don't beleeve in 'em, hain't no call for 'em — 
but this yer baby's parents mebbee did. So rise up out o' 
that cheer, and get one." 

James North looked at Miss Robinson and rose, albeit a 
little in doubt, and hesitating. 

Miss Robinson saw it. " I shouldn't hev troubled ye, 
nor ridden three mile to do it, if ther hed been any one else 
to send. But dad's over at Eureka, buying logs, and I'm 
alone. Hello — wher' yer goin ' ? " 

North had seized his hat and opened the door. " For a 
doctor," he replied amazedly. 

'' Did ye kalkilate to walk six miles and back ? " 

"Certainly — I have no horse." 

"But /have, and you'll find her tethered outside. She 
ain't much to look at, but when you strike the trail she'll 
go." 

" But you — how will you return ? " 

" Well," said Miss Robinson, drawing her chair to the 
fire, taking off her hat and shawl, and warming her knees 
by the blaze, " I didn't reckon to return. You'll find me 
here when you come back with the doctor. Go ! Ske- 
daddle quick." 



The Man on the Beach. 269 

She did not have to repeat the command. In another 
instant James North was in Miss Bessy's seat — a man's 
dragoon saddle — and pounding away through the sand. 
Two facts were in his mind : one was that he, the " looney," 
was about to open communication with the wisdom and 
contemporary criticism of the settlement, by going for a 
doctor to administer to a sick and anonymous infant in his 
possession ; the other was that his solitary house was in 
the hands of a self-invited, large -limbed, illiterate, but 
rather comely young woman. These facts he could not 
gallop away from, but to his credit be it recorded that he 
fulfilled his mission zealously, if not coherently, to the 
doctor, who during the rapid ride gathered the idea that 
North had rescued a young married woman from drowning, 
who had since given birth to a child. 

The few words that set the doctor right when he 
arrived at the cabin might in any other community have 
required further explanation, but Dr. Duchesne, an old 
army surgeon, was prepared for everything and indifferent 
to all. " The infant," he said, " was threatened with inflam- 
mation of the lungs ; at present there was no danger, but 
the greatest care and caution must be exercised. Par- 
ticularly exposure should be avoided." " That settles the 
whole matter then," said Bessy potentially. Both gentle- 
men looked their surprise. " It means," she condescended 
to further explain, " that you must ride that filly home, wait 
for the old man to come to-morrow, and then ride back here 
with some of my duds, for thar's no ' day-days ' nor pic- 
nicing for that baby ontil she's better. And I reckon to 
stay with her ontil she is." 

*' She certainly is unable to bear any exposure at present," 
said the doctor, with an amused side glance at North's 
perplexed face. "Miss Robinson is right." I'll ride with 
you over the sands as far as the trail." 



270 The Man on the Beach. 

" I'm afraid," said North, feeling it incumbent upon him 
to say something, " that you'll hardly find it as comfortable 
here as " 

" I reckon not," she said simply, " but I didn't expect 
much." 

North turned a Httle wearily away. " Good night," she 
said suddenly, extending her hand, with a gentler smile of 
lip and eye than he had ever before noticed, ''good night — 
take good care of dad." 

The doctor and North rode together some moments in 
silence. North had another fact presented to him, i.e., that 
he was going a-visiting, and that he had virtually abandoned 
his former life ; also that it would be profanation to think 
of his sacred woe in the house of a stranger. 

" I daresay," said the doctor suddenly, " you are not 
familiar with the type of woman Miss Bessy presents so 
perfectly. Your life has been spent among the conventional 
class." 

North froze instantly at what seemed to be a probing 
of his secret. Disregarding the last suggestion, he made 
answer simply and truthfully that he had never met any 
Western girl like Bessy. 

" That's your bad luck," said the doctor. " You think 
her coarse and illiterate ? " 

Mr. North had been so much struck with her kindness 
that really he had not thought of it. 

• " That's not so," said the doctor curtly ; " although even 
if you told her so she would not think any the less of you 
— nor of herself. If she spoke rustic Greek instead of 
bad English, and wore a cesfus in place of an ill-fitting 
corset, you'd swear she was a goddess. There's your trail 
Good night." 



The Man on the Beach, 271 



III. 

James North did not sleep well that night. He had taken 
Miss Bessy's bedroom, at her suggestion, there being but 
two, and " dad never using sheets and not bein keerful in 
his habits." It was neat, but that was all. The scant 
ornamentation was atrocious ; two or three highly-coloured 
prints, a shell work-box, a ghastly winter bouquet of skeleton 
leaves and mosses, a starfish, and two china vases hideous 
enough to have been worshipped as Buddhist idols, exhibited 
the gentle recreation of the fair occupant, and the possible 
future education of the child. In the morning he was met 
by Joe, who received the message of his daughter with his 
usual dejection, and suggested that North stay with him 
until the child was better. That event was still remote; 
North found, on his return to his cabin, that the child 
had been worse ; but he did not know, until Miss Bessy 
dropped a casual remark, that she had not closed her own 
eyes that night. It was a week before he regained his 
own quarters, but an active week — indeed, on the whole, a 
rather pleasant week. For there was a delicate flattery in 
being domineered by a wholesome and handsome woman, 
and Mr. James North had by this time made up his mind 
that she was both. Once or twice he found himself con- 
templating her splendid figure with a recollection of the 
doctor's compliment, and later, emulating her own frank- 
ness, told her of it. 

" And what did you say ? " she asked. 

" Oh, I laughed and said — nothing." 

And so did she. 

A month after this interchange of frankness, she asked 
him if he could spend the next evening at her house. " You 
see," she said, " there's to be a dance down at the hall at 



2^2 The Man on the Beach, 

Eureka, and I haven't kicked a fut since last spring. Hank 
Fisher's comin' up to take me over, and I'm goin' to let 
the shanty slide for the night" 

"But what's to become of the baby?" asked North, a 
little testily. 

**Well," said Miss Robinson, facing him somewhat aggres- 
sively, "I reckon it won't hurt ye to take care of it for a night. 
Dad can't — and if he could, he don't know how. Liked 
to have pizened me after mar died. No, young man, I 
don't propose to ask Hank Fisher to tote thet child over 
to Eureka and back, and spile his fun." 

"Then I suppose I must make way for Mr. Hank — Hank 
— Fisher ? " said North, with the least tinge of sarcasm in 
his speech. 

" Of course. You've got nothing else to do, you know." 

North would have given worlds to have pleaded a pre- 
vious engagement on business of importance, but he knew 
that Bessy spoke truly. He had nothing to do. "And 
Fisher has, I suppose ? " he asked. 

" Of course — to look after me 1 " 

A more unpleasant evening James North had not spent 
since the first day of his solitude. He almost began to hate 
the unconscious cause of his absurd position, as he paced 
up and down the floor with it. " Was there ever such 
egregious folly ? " he began, but remembering he was quot- 
ing Maria North's favourite resume of his own conduct, 
he stopped. The child cried, missing, no doubt, the full 
rounded curves and plump arm of its nurse. North 
danced it violently, with an inward accompaniment that 
was not musical, and thought of the other dancers. " Doubt- 
less," he mused, " she has told this beau of hers that she has 
left the baby with the ' looney ' Man on the Beach. Per- 
haps I may be offered a permanent engagement as a harm- 
less simpleton accustomed to the care of children. Mothers 



The Man on the Beach. 273 

may cry for me. The doctor is at Eureka. Of course, he 
will be there to see his untranslated goddess, and condole 
with her over the imbecility of the Man on the Beach." 
Once he carelessly asked Joe who the company were. 

" Well," said Joe mournfully, *' thar's Widder Higsby 
and darter ; the four Stubbs gals ; in course Polly Doble 
will be on hand with that feller that's clerking over at the 
Head for Jones, and Jones's wife. Then thar's French 
Pete, and Whisky Ben, and that chap that shot Archer — I 
disremember his name— and the barber — what's that Httle 
mulatto's name — that 'ar Kanaka ? I swow ! " continued 
Joe drearily, " I'll be forgettin' my own next — and " 

"That will do," interrupted North, only half concealing 
his disgust as he rose and carried the baby to the other 
room, beyond the reach of names that might shock its lady- 
like ears. The next morning he met the from- dance-return- 
ing Bessy abstractedly, and soon took his leave, full of a 
disloyal plan, conceived in the sleeplessness of her own 
bedchamber. He was satisfied that he owed a duty to its 
unknown parents to remove the child from the degrading 
influences of the barber Kanaka, and Hank Fisher especially, 
and he resolved to write to his relatives, stating the case, 
asking a home for the waif and assistance to find its parents. 
He addressed this letter to his cousin Maria, partly in con- 
sideration of the dramatic farewell of that young lady, and 
its possible influence in turning her susceptible heart towards 
\i\% protege. He then quietly settled back to his old soUtary 
habits, and for a week left the Robinsons unvisited. The 
result was a morning call by Trinidad Joe on the hermit. 
*'It's a whim of my gal's, Mr. North," he said dejectedly, 
" and ez I told you before and warned ye, when that gal hez 
an idee, fower yoke of oxen and seving men can't drag it 
outer her. She's got a idee o' larnin' — never hevin' hed 
much schoolin', and we ony takin' the papers, permiskiss 

VOL. IIL s 



2 74 ^^^ Man on the Beach. 

like — and she ^dc^s you can teach her — not hevin' anythin* 
else to do. Do ye folly me ? " 

*'Yes," said North, "certainly." 

"Well, she allows ez mebbee you're proud, and didn't 
like her takin' care of the baby for nowt ; and she reckons 
that ef you'll gin her some book larnin', and get her to sling 
some fancy talk in fash'n'ble style — why, she'll call it 
squar." 

" You can tell her," said North, very honestly, " that I 
shall be only too glad to help her in any way, without ever 
hoping to cancel my debt of obligation to her." 

" Then it's a go ? " said the mystified Joe, with a desperate 
attempt to convey the foregoing statement to his own in- 
tellect in three Saxon words. 

" It's a go," replied North cheerfully. 

And he felt relieved. For he was riot quite satisfied with 
his own want of frankness to her. But here was a way to 
pay off the debt he owed her, and yet retain his own dignity. 
And now he could tell her what he had done, and he trusted 
to the ambitious instinct that prompted her to seek a better 
education to explain his reasons for it. 

He saw her that evening and confessed all to her frankly. 
She kept her head averted, but when she turned her blue 
eyes to him they were wet with honest tears. North had a 
man's horror of a ready feminine lachrymal gland ; but it 
was not like Bessy to cry, and it meant something ; and then 
she did it in a large, goddess-Hke way, without sniffling, or 
choking, or getting her nose red, but rather with a gentle 
deliquescence, a harmonious melting, so that he was fain to 
comfort her with nearer contact, gentleness in his own sad 
eyes, and a pressure of her large hand. 

"It's all right, I s'pose," she said sadly; "but I didn't 
reckon on yer havin' any relations, but thought you was 
alone, like me." 



I 



The Man on the Beach, 275 

James North, thinking of Hank Fisher and the " muUater." 
could not help intimating that his relations were very wealthy 
and fashionable people, and had visited him last summer. 
A recollection of the manner in which they had so visited 
him, and his own reception of them, prevented his saying 
more. But Miss Bessy could not forego a certain feminine 
curiosity, and asked — 

" Did they come with Sam Baker's team ? " 

"Yes." 

" Last July ? " 

"Yes." 

"And Sam drove the horses here for a bite?" 

"I believe so." 

" And them's your relations ? " 

"They are." 

Miss Robinson reached over the cradle and enfolded the 
sleeping infant in her powerful arms. Then she lifted her 
eyes, wrathful through her still glittering tears, and said, 
slowly, "They don't — have — this — child — then !" 

"But why?" 

" Oh, why ? / saw them ! That's why, and enough ! 
You can't play any such gay and festive skeletons on this 
poor baby for flesh and blood parents. No, sir ! " 

" I think you judge them hastily, Miss Bessy," said North, 
secretly amused ; " my aunt may not, at first, favourably 
impress strangers, yet she has many friends. But surely 
you do not object to my cousin Maria, the young lady ? " 

"What! that dried cuttlefish, with nothing livin' about 
her but her eyes? James North, ye may be a fool like the 
old woman — perhaps it's in the family — but ye ain't a 
devil like that gal I That ends it" 

And it did. North despatched a second letter to Maria 
saying that he had already made other arrangements for the 
baby. Pleased with her easy victory, Miss Bessy became 



276 The Man on the Beach. 

more than usually gracious, and the next day bowed her 
shapely neck meekly to the yoke of her teacher, and became 
a docile pupil. James North could not have helped notic- 
ing her ready intelligence, even had he been less prejudiced 
in her favour than he was fast becoming now. If he had 
found it pleasant before to be admonished by her, there was 
still more delicious flattery in her perfect trust in his omni- 
scient skill as a pilot over this unknown sea. There was a 
certain enjoyment in guiding her hand over the writing- 
book, that I fear he could not have obtained from an intel- 
lect less graciously sustained by its physical nature. The 
weeks flew quickly by on gossamer wings, and when she 
placed a bunch of larkspurs and poppies in his hand one 
morning, he remembered for the first time that it was 
spring. 

1 cannot say that there was more to record of Miss 
Bessy's education than this. Once North, half jestingly, 
remarked that he had never yet seen her admirer, Mr. Hank 
Fisher. Miss Bessy (colouring but cool) — "You never 
will!" North (white but hot)— "Why?" Miss Bessy 
(faintly)—" I'd rather not." (North resolutely)—" I insist." 
Bessy (yielding) — " As my teacher ? " North (hesitatingly, 
at the limitation of the epithet) — "Y-e-e-s!" Bessy — 
" And you'll promise never to speak of it again ? " North — 
"Never." Bessy (slowly) — "Well, he said I did an awful 
thing to go over to your cabin and stay." North (in the 
genuine simplicity of a refined nature) — " But how ? " 
Miss Bessy (half piqued, but absolutely admiring that 
nature) — " Quit ! and keep your promise ! " 

They were so happy in these new relations that it occurred 
to Miss Bessy one day to take James North to task for 
obliging her to ask to be his pupil. " You knew how igno- 
rant I was," she added ; and Mr. North retorted by relating 
to her the doctor's criticism on her independence. " To tell 



The Man on the Beach. 277 

you the truth," he added, " I was afraid you would not take 
it as kindly as he thought." 

" That is, you thought me as vain as yourself. It seems 
to me you and the doctor had a great deal to say to each 
other." 

"On the contrary," laughed North, "that was all we 
said." 

" And you didn't make fun of me ? " 

Perhaps it was not necessary for North to take her hand 
to emphasise his denial, but he did. 

Miss Bessy, being still reminiscent, perhaps did not notice 
it. " If it hadn't been for that ar — I mean that thar — no, 
that baby — I wouldn't have known you ! " she said dreamily. 

"No," returned North mischievously, "but you still 
would have known Hank Fisher." 

No woman is perfect. Miss Bessy looked at him with a 
sudden — her first and last — flash of coquetry. Then 
stooped and kissed — the baby. 

James North was a simple gentleman, but not altogether 
a fool. He returned the kiss, but not vicariously. 

There was a footstep on the porch. These two turned 
the hues of a dying dolphin, and then laughed. It was 
Joe. He held a newspaper in his hand. " I reckon ye woz 
right, Mr. North, about my takin' these yar papers reg'lar. 
For I allow here's suthin' that may clar up the mystery o' 
that baby's parents." With the hesitation of a slowly 
grappling intellect, Joe sat down on the table and read 
from the San Francisco " Herald " as follows : — " ' It is now 
ascertained beyond doubt that the wreck reported by the 
"^olus" was the American brig " Pompare," bound hence 
to Tahiti. The worst surmises are found correct. The 
body of the woman has been since identified as that of the 
beauti-ful daughter of — of — of — Terp — Terp — Terpish' — 
Well ! I swow that name just tackles me." 



278 The Man 071 the Beach. 

" Gin it to me, dad," said Bessy pertly. " You never 
had any education, any way. Hear your accomplished 
daughter." With a mock bow to the new schoolmaster, 
and a capital burlesque of a confident schoolgirl, she strode 
to the middle of the room, the paper held and folded book- 
wise in her hands. "Ahem ! Where did you leave off.? 
Oh, ' the beautiful daughter of Terpsichore — whose name 
was prom-i-nently connected with a mysterious social 
scandal of last year — the gifted but unfortunate Grace 
Chatterton ' — No — don't stop me— there's some more! 
' The body of her child, a lovely infant of six months, 
has not been recovered, and it is supposed was washed 
overboard.' There ! maybe that's the child, Mr. North. 
Why, dad ! Look, O my God ! He's falling. Catch him, 
dad ! Quick ! " 

But her strong arm had anticipated her father's. She 
caught him, lifted him to the bed, on which he lay hence- 
forth for many days unconscious. Then fever supervened, 
and delirium, and Dr. Duchesne telegraphed for his friends ; 
but at the end of a week and the opening of a summer day 
the storm passed, as the other storm had passed, and he 
awoke, enfeebled, but at peace. Bessy was at his side — 
he was glad to see — alone. " Bessy, dear," he said hesi- 
tatingly, " when I am stronger I have something to tell 
you." 

" I know it all, Jem," she said with a trembling lip ; " I 
heard it all — no, not from them, but from your own lips 
in your delirium. I'm glad it came from you — even 
then." 

" Do you forgive me, Bessy ? " 

She pressed her lips to his forehead and said hastily, and 
then falteringly, as if afraid of her impulse — 

"Yes. Yes." 

" And you will still be mother to the child ? ^ 



The Man on the Beach. 2 79 

«^^r child?" 

" No, dear, not hers, but mine I " 

She started, cried a httle, and then putting her arms 
around him, said, "Yes." 

And as there was but one way of fulfilling that sacred 
promise, they were married in the autumn. 



( 28o ) 



Koger Catron's jTtienli* 

I THINK that, from the beginning, we all knew how it would 
end. He had always been so quiet and conventional, al- 
though by nature an impulsive man ; always so temperate 
and abstemious, although a man with a quick appreciation 
of pleasure ; always so cautious and practical, although an 
imaginative man, that when, at last, one by one he loosed 
these bands, and gave himself up to a life, perhaps not 
worse than other lives, which the world has accepted as the 
natural expression of their various owners, we at once decided 
that the case was a hopeless one. And when one night we 
picked him up out of the Union Ditch, a begrimed and 
weather-worn drunkard, a hopeless debtor, a self-confessed 
spendthrift, and a half-conscious, maudlin imbecile, we knew 
that the end had come. The wife he had abandoned had 
in turn deserted him ; the woman he had misled had al- 
ready realised her folly, and left him with her reproaches ; 
the associates of his reckless life, who had used and abused 
him, had found him no longer of service, or even amuse- 
ment, and clearly there was nothing left to do but to hand 
him over to the State, and we took him to the nearest 
penitential asylum. Conscious of the Samaritan deed, we 
went back to our respective wives, and told his story. It is 
only just to say that these sympathetic creatures were more 
interested in the philanthropy of their respective husbands 
than in its miserable object. " It was good and kind in 



Rogei^ Catro7i's Friend. 281 

you, dear," said loving Mrs. Maston to her spouse, as re- 
turning home that night he flung his coat on a chair with 
an air of fatigued righteousness ; " it was Hke your kind 
heart to care for that beast ; but after he left that good wife 
of his — that perfect saint — to take up with that awful woman, 
I think I'd have left him to die in the ditch. Only to think 
of it, dear, a woman that you wouldn't speak to ! " Here 
Mr. Maston coughed slightly, coloured a little, mumbled 
something about *' women not understanding some things," 
" that men were men," &c., and then went comfortably to 
sleep, leaving the outcast happily oblivious of all things, 
and especially this criticism, locked up in Hangtown Jail. 

For the next twelve hours he lay there, apathetic and 
half-conscious. Recovering from this after awhile, he 
became furious, vengeful, and unmanageable, filling the cell 
and corridor with maledictions of friend and enemy ; and 
again sullen, morose, and watchful. Then he refused food, 
and did not sleep, pacing his limits with the incessant 
feverish tread of a caged tiger. Two physicians, diagnosing 
his case from the scant facts, pronounced him insane, and 
he was accordingly transported to Sacramento. But on the 
way thither he managed to elude the vigilance of his guards, 
and escaped. The alarm was given, a hue and cry followed 
him, the best detectives of San Francisco were on his track, 
and finally recovered his dead body — emaciated and wasted 
by exhaustion and fever — in the Stanislaus Marshes, identi- 
fied it, and, receiving the reward of |iooo offered by his 
surviving relatives and family, assisted in legally estabUshing 
the end we had predicted. 

Unfortunately for the moral, the facts were somewhat 
inconsistent with the theory. A day or two after the remains 
were discovered and identified, the real body of "Roger 
Catron, ageid 52 years, slight, iron-gray hair, and shabby in 
apparel," as the advertisement read, dragged itself, travel- 



282 Roger Catron s Friend. 

worn, trembling, and dishevelled, up the steep slope of 
Deadwood Hill. How he should do it he had long since 
determined, — ever since he had hidden his Derringer, a 
mere baby pistol, from the vigilance of his keepers. Where 
he should do it, he had settled within his mind only within 
the last few moments. Deadwood Hill was seldom fre- 
quented ; his body might lie there for months before it was 
discovered. He had once thought of the river, but he 
remembered it had an ugly way of exposing its secrets on 
sandbar and shallow, and that the body of Whisky Jim, 
bloated and disfigured almost beyond recognition, had been 
once delivered to the eyes of Sandy Bar, before breakfast, 
on the left bank of the Stanislaus. He toiled up through 
the chimisal that clothed the southern slope of the hill until 
he reached the bald, storm-scarred cap of the mountain, 
ironically decked with the picked, featherless plumes of a 
few dying pines. One stripped of all but two lateral branches, 
brought a boyish recollection to his fevered brain. Against 
a background of dull sunset fire, it extended to gaunt 
arms — black, rigid, and pathetic. Calvary ! 

With the very word upon his lips, he threw himself, face 
downwards, on the ground beneath it, and with his fingers 
clutched in the soil, lay there for some moments, silent and 
still. In this attitude, albeit a sceptic and unorthodox man, 
he prayed. I cannot say — indeed I dare not say — that his 
prayer was heard, or that God visited him thus. Let us 
rather hope that all there was of God in him, in this crucial 
moment of agony and shame, strove outward and upward. 
Howbeit, when the moon rose he rose too, perhaps a trifle 
less steady than the planet, and began to descend the hill 
with feverish haste, yet with this marked difference between 
his present haste and his former recklessness, that it seemed 
to have a well-defined purpose. When he reached the road 
again, he struck into a well-worn trail, where, in the distance, 



Roger Catron s Friend. 283 

a light faintly twinkled. Following this beacon, he kept on, 
and at last flung himself heavily against the door of the 
little cabin from whose window the light had shone. As he 
did so, it opened upon the figure of a square, thickset man, 
who, in the impetuosity of Catron's onset, received him, 
literally, in his arms. 

"Captain Dick," said Roger Catron hoarsely, ''Captain 
Dick, save me ! For God's sake, save me ! " 

Captain Dick, without a word, placed a large, protect- 
ing hand upon Catron's shoulder, allowed it to slip to his 
waist, and then drew his visitor quietly, but firmly, within 
the cabin. Yet, in the very movement, he had managed 
to gently and unobtrusively possess himself of Catron's 
pistol. 

'^ Save ye ! From which ? " asked Captain Dick, as 
quietly and unobtrusively dropping the Derringer in a 
flour sack. 

"From everything," gasped Catron, " from the men that 
are hounding me, from my family, from my friends, but 
most of all — from, from — myself!" 

He had, in turn, grasped Captain Dick, and forced him 
frenziedly against the wall. The Captain released himself, 
and, taking the hands of his excited visitor, said slowly — 

"Ye want some blue mass — suthin' to onload your 
liver. I'll get it up for ye." 

" But, Captain Dick, I'm an outcast, shamed, dis- 
graced " 

"Two on them pills taken now, and two in the morning," 
continued the Captain gravely, rolling a bolus in his 
fingers, " will bring yer head to the wind again. Yer 
fallin' to leeward all the time, and ye want to brace up." 

"But, Captain," continued the agonised man, again 
clutching the sinewy arms of his host, and forcing his livid 
face and fixed eyes within a few inches of Captain Dick's, 



284 Roger Catron's Friend. 

" hear me ! You must and shall hear me. I've been in 
jail — do you hear ? — in jail, like a common felon. I've been 
sent to the asylum, like a demented pauper. I've" 

"Two now, and two in the morning," continued the 
captain quietly, releasing one hand only to place two enor- 
mous pills in the mouth of the excited Catron. " Thar now 
— a drink o' whisky — thar, that'll do — just enough to take 
the taste out of yer mouth, wash it down, and belay it, so 
to speak. And how are the mills running, gin'rally, over at 
the Bar ? " 

'' Captain Dick, hear me — if you are my friend, for God's 
sake hear me ! An hour ago I should have been a dead 
man " 

" They say that Sam Bolin hez sold out of the ' Exel- 
sior'" 

" Captain Dick ! Listen, for God's sake ; I have 
suffered " 

But Captain Dick was engaged in critically examining 
his man. " I guess I'll ladle ye out some o' that soothin' 
mixture I bought down at Simpson's t'other day," he said 
reflectively. " And I onderstand the boys up on the Bar 
thinks the rains will set in airly." 

But here Nature was omnipotent. Worn by exhaus- 
tion, excitement, and fever, and possibly a little affected 
by Captain Dick's later potion, Roger Catron turned white, 
and lapsed against the wall. In an instant Captain Dick 
had caught him, as a child, lifted him in his stalwart arms, 
wrapped a blanket around him, and deposited him in his 
bunk. Yet, even in his prostration, Catron made one more 
despairing appeal for mental sympathy from his host. 

" I know I'm sick — dying, perhaps," he gasped, from 
under the blankets ; " but promise me, whatever comes, 
tell my wife — say to " 

**It has been lookin' consid'ble like rain, lately, here- 



Roger Catron's Friend. 285 

abouts," continued the Captain coolly, in a kind of amphi- 
bious slang, characteristic of the man, " but in these yer 
latitudes no man kin set up to be a weather sharp." 

" Captain ! will you hear me ? " 

" Yer goin' to sleep, now," said the Captain potentially. 

" But, Captain, they are pursuing me ! If they should 
track me here ? " 

"Thar is a rifle over thar, and yer's my navy revolver. 
When I've emptied them, and want you to bear a hand 
I'll call ye. Just now your lay is to turn in. It's my 
watch." 

There was something so positive, strong, assuring, and 
a little awesome in the Captain's manner, that the trembling, 
nervously-prostrated man beneath the blankets forbore to 
question further. In a few minutes his breathing, albeit 
hurried and irregular, announced that he slept. The Cap- 
tain then arose, for a moment critically examined the 
sleeping man, holding his head a Httle on one side, whistling 
softly, and stepping backwards to get a good perspective, 
but always with contemplative good humour, as if Catron 
were a work of art, which he (the Captain) had created, yet 
one that he was not yet entirely satisfied with. Then he 
put a large pea-jacket over his flannel blouse, dragged a 
Mexican serape from the corner, and putting it over his 
shoulders, opened the cabin door, sat down on the door- 
step, and leaning back against the door-post, composed 
himself to meditation. The moon lifted herself slowly 
over the crest of Deadwood Hill, and looked down, not 
unkindly, on his broad, white, shaven face, round and 
smooth as her own disc, encircled with a thin fringe of 
white hair and whiskers. Indeed, he looked so like the 
prevailing caricatures in a comic almanac of planets, with 
dimly outlined features, that the moon would have been 
quite justified in flirting with him, as she clearly did, 



286 Roger Catron s Friend. 

insinuating a twinkle into his keen, gray eyes, making the 
shadow of a dimple on his broad, fat chin, and otherwise 
idealising him after the fashion of her hero-worshipping 
sex. Touched by these benign influences, Captain Dick 
presently broke forth in melody. His song was various, 
but chiefly, I think, confined to the recital of the exploits 
of one " Lorenzo," who, as related by himself — 

" Shipped on board of a Liner, 

'Renzo, boys, 'Renzo,**— 

a fact that seemed to have deprived him at once of all 
metre, grammar, or even the power of coherent narrative. 
At times a groan or a half-articulate cry would come from 
the " bunk " whereon Roger Catron lay, a circumstance that 
alvfays seemed to excite Captain Dick to greater effort and 
more rapid vocalisation. Toward morning, in the midst 
of a prolonged howl from the Captain, who was finishing 
the " Starboard Watch, ahoy ! " in three different keys, Roger 
Catron's voice broke suddenly and sharply from his enwrap- 
pings— 

" Dry up you d — d old fool, will you ? " 

Captain Dick stopped instantly. Rising to his feet, and 
looking over the landscape, he took all Nature into his con- 
fidence in one inconceivably arch and crafty wink. " He's 
coming up to the wind," he said softly, rubbing his hands. 
"The pills is fetchin' him. Steady now, boys, steady. 
Steady as she goes on her course," and with another wink of 
ineffable wisdom, he entered the cabin and locked the door. 

Meanwhile, the best society of Sandy Bar was kind to 
the newly-made widow. Without being definitely expressed, 
it was generally felt that sympathy with her was now safe, 
and carried no moral responsibility with it. Even practical 
and pecuniary aid, which before had been withheld, lest it 



Roger Catron s Friend. 287 

should be diverted from its proper intent, and, perhaps 
through the weakness of the wife, made to minister to the 
wickedness of the husband — even that was now openly 
suggested. Everybody felt that somebody should do some- 
thing for the widow. A few did it. Her own sex rallied 
to her side, generally with large sympathy, but, unfor- 
tunately, small pecuniary or practical result. At last, when 
the feasibility of her taking a boarding-house in San Fran- 
cisco, and identifying herself with that large class of American 
gentlewomen who have seen better days, but clearly are on 
the road never to see them again, was suggested, a few of her 
own and her husband's rich relatives came to the front to 
rehabilitate her. It was easier to take her into their homes 
as an equal, than to refuse to call upon her as the mistress 
of a lodging-house in the adjoining street. And upon 
inspection it was found that she was still quite an eligible 
partie^ prepossessing, and withal, in her widow's weeds, a kind 
of poetical and sentimental presence, as necessary in a 
wealthy and fashionable American family as a work of art. 
"Yes, poor Caroline has had a sad, sad history," the 
languid Mrs. Walker Catron would say, " and we all sym- 
pathise with her deeply ; Walker always regards her as a 
sister." What was this dark history never came out, but its 
very mystery always thrilled the visitor, and seemed to 
indicate plainly the respectability of the hostess. An 
American family without a genteel skeleton in its closet 
could scarcely add to that gossip which keeps society from 
forgetting its members. Nor was it altogether unnatural 
that presently Mrs. Roger Catron lent herself to this senti- 
mental deception, and began to think that she really was a 
. more exquisitely aggrieved woman than she imagined. At 
times, when this vague load of iniquity put upon her dead 
husband assumed, through the mystery of her friends, the 
rumour of murder and highway robbery, and even an 



288 Roger Catron s Friend. 

attempt upon her own life, she went to her room, a little 
frightened, and had "a good cry," reappearing more mourn- 
ful and pathetic than ever, and corroborating the suspicions 
of her friends. Indeed, one or two impulsive gentlemen, 
fired by her pathetic eyelids, openly regretted that the 
deceased had not been hanged, to which Mrs. Walker Catron 
responded that, " Thank Heaven, they were spared at least 
that disgrace ! " and so sent conviction into the minds of 
her hearers. 

It was scarcely two months after this painful close of 
her matrimonial life that one rainy February morning the 
servant brought a card to Mrs. Roger Catron, bearing the 
following inscription : — ■ 

" Richard Graeme Macleod." 

Women are more readily affected by names than we are, 
and there was a certain Highland respectability about this 
that, albeit, not knowing its possessor, impelled Mrs. Catron 
to send word that she " would be down in a few moments." 
At the end of this femininely indefinite period — a quarter 
of an hour by the French clock on the mantelpiece — Mrs. 
Roger Catron made her appearance in the reception-room. 
It was a dull, wet day, as I have said before, but on the 
Contra Costa hills the greens and a few flowers were already 
showing a promise of rejuvenescence and an early spring. 
There was something of this, I think, in Mrs. Catron's 
presence, shown perhaps in the coquettish bow of a ribbon, 
in a larger and more delicate ruche, in a tighter belting of 
her black cashmere gown ; but still there was a suggestion 
of recent rain in the eyes, and threatening weather. As 
she entered the room, the sun came out, too, and revealed 
the prettiness and delicacy of her figure, and I regret to 
state, also, the somewhat obtrusive plainness of her visitor. 

" I knew ye'd be sorter disapp'inted at first, not gettin* 



Roger Catron s Friend, 289 

the regular bearings o' my name, but I'm * Captain Dick.' 
Mebbee ye've heard your husband — that is, your husband 
ez waz, Roger Catron — speak o' me ? " 

Mrs. Catron, feeling herself outraged and deceived in 
belt, ruche, and ribbon, freezingly admitted that she had 
heard of him before. 

" In course," said the Captain ; " why, Lord love ye, Mrs. 
Catron — ez waz — he used to be all the time talkin' of 
ye. And allers in a free, easy, confidential way. Why, one 
night — don't ye remember ? — when he came home, carryin', 
mebbee, more canvas than was seamanlike, and you shet 
him out the house, and laid for him with a broomstick, or 
one o' them crokay mallets, I disremember which, and he 
kem over to me, ole Captain Dick, and I sez to him, sez I, 
' Why, Roger, them's only love pats, and yer condishun is 
such ez to make any woman mad-hke.' Why, Lord bless 
ye ! there ain't enny of them mootool differences you and 
him hed ez I doesn't knows on, and didn't always stand 
by, and lend ye a hand, and heave in a word or two of 
advice when called on." 

Mrs. Catron, ice everywhere but in her pink cheeks, was 
glad that Mr. Catron seemed to have always a friend to 
whom he confided everything^ even the base falsehoods 
he had invented. 

" Mebbee now they waz falsehoods," said the Captain 
thoughtfully. " But don't ye go to think," he added con- 
scientiously, '' that he kept on that tack all the time. Why, 
that day he made a raise, gambling, I think, over at Dutch 
Flat, and give ye them bracelets — regular solid gold — • 
why, it would have done your heart good to have heard 
him talk about you — said you had the prettiest arm in 
Californy. Well," said the Captain, looking around for a 
suitable climax, "well, you'd have thought that he was 
sorter proud of ye ! Why, I woz with him in 'Frisco when 

VOL. III. T 



290 Roger Cati'on's Friend. 

he bought that A-i prize bonnet for ye for $75, and not 
hevin' over $50 in his pocket, borryed the other $25 outer 
me. Mebbee it was a little fancy for a bonnet ; but I 
allers thought he took it a little too much to heart when 
you swopped it off for that Dollar Varden dress, just 
because that Lawyer Maxwell said the Dollar Vardens was 
becomin' to ye. Ye know, I reckon, he was always sorter 
jealous of that thar shark " 

" May I venture to ask what your business is with me ? " 
interrupted Mrs. Catron sharply. 

" In course," said the Captain, rising. *' Ye see," he 
said apologetically, "we got to talking o' Roger and ole 
times, and I got a little out o' my course. It's a matter 
of" — he began to fumble in his pockets, and finally pro- 
duced a small memorandum-book, which he glanced over 
— "it's a matter of $250." 

"I don't understand you," said Mrs. Catron, in indig- 
nant astonishment. 

" On the 15th of July," said the Captain, consulting his 
memorandum-book, "Roger sold his claim at Nye's Ford 
for 1 1 500. Now, le's see. Thar was nigh on $350 ez he 
admitted to me he lost at poker, and we'll add $50 to that 
for treating, supper, and drinks gin'rally — put Roger down 
for I400. Then there was you. Now you spent $250 on 
your trip to 'Frisco thet summer ; then $200 went for them 
presents you sent your Aunt Jane, and thar was $400' for 
house expenses. Well, thet foots up $1250. Now, what's 
become of thet other $250 ? " 

Mrs. Catron's woman's impulse to retaliate sharply over- 
came her first natural indignation at her visitor's impudence. 
Therein she lost, womanlike, her ground of vantage. 

" Perhaps the woman he fled with can tell you," she said 
savagely. 

"Thet," said the Captain slowly, "is a good, a reason- 



Roger Catron! s Friend. 291 

able idee. But it ain't true ; from all I can gather she lent 
hi7}i money. It didn't go thar.'''' 

" Roger Catron left me penniless," said Mrs. Catron 
hotly. 

"Thet's jist what gets me. You oughter have $250 
somewhar lying round." 

Mrs. Catron saw her error. " May I ask what right you 
have to question me ? If you have any, I must refer you 
to my lawyer or my brother-in-law ; if you have none, I 
hope you will not oblige me to call the servants to put you 
from the house." 

"Thet sounds reasonable and square, too," said the 
Captain thoughtfully; "I've a power of attorney from 
Roger Catron to settle up his affairs and pay his debts, 
given a week afore them detectives handed ye over his 
dead body. But I thought that you and me might save 
lawyer's fees and all fuss and feathers, ef, in a sociable, sad- 
like way — lookin' back sorter on Roger ez you and me 
once knew him — we had a quiet talk together." 

"Good morning, sir," said Mrs. Catron, rising stiffly. 
The Captain hesitated a moment, a slight flush of colour 
came in his face as he at last rose as the lady backed out 
of the room. " Good morning, ma'am," said the Captain, 
and departed. 

Very little was known of this interview except the general 
impression in the family that Mrs. Catron had successfully 
resisted a vague attempt at blackmail from one of her 
husband's former dissolute companions. Yet it is only fair 
to say that Mrs. Catron snapped up, quite savagely, two 
male sympathisers on this subject, and cried a good deal 
for two days afterward, and once, in the hearing of her 
sister-in-law, to that lady's great horror, "wished she was 
dead." 

A week after this interview, as Lawyer Phillips sat in his 



292 Roger Catron s Friend. 

office, he was visited by Macleod. Recognising, possibly, 
some practical difference between the widow and the 
lawyer, Captain Dick this time first produced his creden- 
tials — a "power of attorney." "I need not tell you," said 
Phillips, "that the death of your principal renders this 
instrument invalid, and I suppose you know that, leaving 
no will and no property, his estate has not been admini- 
stered upon." 

" Mebbee it is, and mebbee it isn't. But I hain't askin' 
any thin' but information. There was a bit o' prop'ty 
and a mill onto it, over at Heavytree, ez sold for 1 10,000. 
I don't see," said the Captain, consulting his memorandum- 
book, "ez he got anything out of it." 

" It was mortgaged for $7000," said the lawyer quickly, 
"and the interest and fees amount to about $3000 more." 

" The mortgage was given as security for a note ? " 

"Yes, a gambling debt," said the lawyer sharply. 

"Thet's so, and my belief ez that it wasn't a square 
game. He shouldn't hev given no note. Why, don't ye 
mind, 'way back in '60, when you and me waz in Marys- 
ville, that night that you bucked agin faro, and lost seving 
hundred dollars, and then refoosed to take up your checks, 
saying it was a fraud and gambling debt ? And don't ye 
mind when that chap kicked ye, and I helped to drag him 
off ye — and " 

"I'm busy now, Mr. Macleod," said Phillips hastily; 
"my clerk will give you all the information you require. 
Good morning." 

"It's mighty queer," said the Captain thoughtfully, as 
he descended the stairs, " but the moment the conversation 
gets limber and sociable-like, and I gets to runnin' free 
under easy sail, it's always ' Good morning, Captain,' and 
we're becalmed." 

By some occult influence, however, all the foregoing con- 



Roger Catron s Frie7id. 293 

versation, slightly exaggerated, and the whole interview of 
the Captain with the widow, with sundry additions, became 
the common property of Sandy Bar, to the great delight of 
the boys. There was scarcely a person who had ever 
had business or social relations with Roger Catron, whom 
"The Frozen Truth," as Sandy Bar delighted to designate 
the Captain, had not " interviewed," as simply and directly. 
It is said that he closed a conversation with one of the San 
Francisco detectives, who had found Roger Catron's body, 
in these words : " And now hevin got throo' bizness, I was 
goin' to ask ye what's gone of Mat Jones, who was with 
ye in the bush in Austraily. Lord, how he got me quite 
interested in ye, telling me how you and him got out on a 
ticket-of-leave, and was chased by them milishy guards, and 
at last swam out to a San Francisco bark and escaped;" 
but here the inevitable pressure of previous business always 
stopped the Captain's conversational flow. The natural 
result of this was a singular reaction in favour of the late 
Roger Catron in the public sentiment of Sandy Bar, so 
strong, indeed, as to induce the Rev. Mr. Joshua M'Snagly, 
the next Sunday, to combat it with the moral of Catron's 
life. After the service, he was approached in the vestibule, 
and in the hearing of some of his audience, by Captain 
Dick, with the following compliment : " In many pints ye 
hed jess got Roger Catron down to a hair. I knew ye'd 
do it : why. Lord love ye, you and him had pints in 
common ; and when he giv' ye that hundred dollars arter 
the fire in Sacramento, to help ye rebuild the parsonage, 
he said to me — me not likin' ye on account o' my being 
on the committee that invited ye to resign from Marysville 
all along o' that affair with Deacon Pursell's darter ; and a 
piece she was, parson ! eh ? — well, Roger, he ups and sez 
to me, 'Every man hez his faults,' sez he; and, sez he, 
* there's no reason why a parson ain't a human being like 



294 Roger Catron's Friend. 

us, and that gal o' Pursell's is pizen, ez I know.' So ye 
see, I seed that ye was hittin' yourself over Catron's 
shoulder, like them early martyrs." But here, as Captain 
Dick was clearly blocking up all egress from the church, 
the sexton obliged him to move on, and again he was 
stopped in his conversational career. 

But only for a time. Before long, it was whispered that 
Captain Dick had ordered a meeting of the creditors, 
debtors, and friends of Roger Catron at Robinson's Hall. 
It was suggested, with some show of reason, that this had 
been done at the instigation of various practical jokers of 
Sandy Bar, who had imposed on the simple directness of 
the Captain, and the attendance that night certainly indi- 
cated something more than a mere business meeting. All 
of Sandy Bar crowded into Robinson's Hall, and long before 
Captain Dick made his appearance on the platform, with 
his inevitable memorandum-book, every inch of floor was 
crowded. 

The Captain began to read the expenditures of Roger 
Catron with relentless fidelity of detail. The several losses 
by poker, the whisky bills, and the record of a "jamboree" 
at Tooley's, the vague expenses whereof footed up $275, 
were received with enthusiastic cheers by the audience. A 
single milliner's bill for $125 was hailed with dehght; $100 
expended in treating the Vestal Virgin Combination Troupe 
almost canonised his memory; $50 for a simple buggy ride 
with Deacon Fisk brought down the house ; I500 advanced, 
without security, and unpaid, for the electioneering expenses 
of Assemblyman Jones, who had recently introduced a bill 
to prevent gambling and the sale of lager beer on Sundays, 
was received with an ominous groan. One or two other 
items of money loaned occasioned the withdrawal of several 
gentlemen from the audience amidst the hisses or ironical 
cheers of the others. 



Roger Catron s Friend, 295 

At last Captain Dick stopped and advanced to the foot- 
lights. 

" Gentlemen and friends," he said slowly. " I foots up 
$25,000 as Roger Catron hez made^ fair and square, in this 
yer county. I foots up $27,000 ez he has spent in this yer 
county. I puts it to you ez men — far-minded men — ef 
this man was a pauper and debtor ? I put it to you ez far- 
minded men — ez free and easy men — ez political econo- 
mists— ez this the kind of men to impoverish a county ? " 

An overwhelming and instantaneous " No ! " almost 
drowned the last utterance of the speaker. 

"Thar is only one item," said Captain Dick slowly, 
"only one item, that ez men — ez far-minded men — ez 
political economists — it seems to me we hez the right to 
question. It's this : Thar is an item, read to you by me, 
of $2 000 paid to certing San Francisco detectives, paid out 
o' the assets o' Roger Catron, for the finding of Roger 
Catron's body. Gentlemen of Sandy Bar and friends, / 
found that body, and yer it is ! " 

And Roger Catron, a little pale and nervous, but palpably 
in the flesh, stepped upon the platform. 

Of course the newspapers were full of it the next day. 
Of course, in due time, it appeared as a garbled and romantic 
item in the San Francisco press. Of course Mrs. Catron, 
on reading it, fainted, and for two days said that this last 
cruel blow ended all relations between her husband and 
herself. On the third day she expressed her belief that, if 
he had had the slightest feeling for her he would long since, 
for the sake of mere decency, have communicated with her. 
On the fourth day she thought she had been, perhaps, badly 
advised, had an open quarrel with her relatives, and inti- 
mated that a wife had certain obligations, &c. On the sixth 
day, still not hearing from him, she quoted Scripture, spoke 
of a seventy-times-seven forgiveness, and went generally into 



296 Roger Catron s Friend. 

mild hysterics. On the seventh, she left in the morning 
train for Sandy Bar. 

And really I don't know as I have anything more to tell. 
I dined with them recently, and, upon my word, a more 
decorous, correct, conventional, and dull dinner I never 
ate in my life. 



( 297 ) 



« 



Sfinng.' 



I THINK that the few who were permitted to know and love 
the object of this sketch spent the rest of their days, not 
only in an attitude of apology for having at first failed to 
recognise her higher nature, but of remorse that they should 
have ever lent a credulous ear to cL priori tradition concern- 
ing her family characteristics. She had not escaped that 
calumny which she shared with the rest of her sex for those 
youthful follies, levities, and indiscretions which belong to 
immaturity. It is very probable that the firmness that dis- 
tinguished her maturer will in youth might have been taken 
for obstinacy, that her nice discrimination might at the same 
period have been taken for adolescent caprice, and that the 
positive expression of her quick intellect might have been 
thought youthful impertinence before her years had won 
respect for her judgment. 

She was foaled at Indian Creek, and one month later, 
when she was brought over to Sawyers Bar, was considered 
the smallest donkey ever seen in the foot-hills. The legend 
that she was brought over in one of " Dan the Quartz 
Crusher's " boots required corroboration from that gentle- 
man ; but his denial being evidently based upon a masculine 
vanity regarding the size of his foot rather than a desire to 
be historically accurate, it went for nothing. It is certain 
that for the next two months she occupied the cabin of 
Dan, until, perhaps incensed at this and other scandals, she 



298 ^^ Jinny!' 

one night made her way out. " I hadn't the least idee wot 
woz cominV said Dan, " but about midnight I seemed to 
hear hail onto the roof, and a shower of rocks and stones 
like to a blast started in the canon. When I got up and 
struck a light, thar was suthin' like onto a cord o' kindlin' 
wood and splinters whar she'd stood asleep, and a hole in 
the side o' the shanty, and — no Jinny ! Lookin' at them 
hoofs o' hern — and mighty porty they is to look at, too — 
you would allow she could do it ! " I fear that this per- 
formance laid the foundation of her later infelicitous reputa- 
tion, and perhaps awakened in her youthful breast a misplaced 
ambition, and an emulation which might at that time have 
been diverted into a nobler channel. For the fame of this 
juvenile performance — and its possible promise in the future 
— brought at once upon her the dangerous flattery and 
attention of the whole camp. Under intelligently directed 
provocation she would repeat her misguided exercise, until 
most of the scanty furniture of the cabin was reduced to a 
hopeless wreck, and sprains and callosities were developed 
upon the limbs of her admirers. Yet even at this early 
stage of her history, that penetrating intellect which was in 
after years her dominant quality was evident to all. She 
could not be made to kick at quartz tailings, at a barrel of 
Boston crackers, or at the head or shin of " Nigger Pete." 
An artistic discrimination economised her surplus energy. 
" Ef you'll notiss," said Dan, with a large parental softness, 
" she never lets herself out to oust like them mules or any 
jackass ez I've lieerd of, but kinder holds herself in, and, so 
to speak, takes her bearings — sorter feels round gently with 
that off foot, takes her distance and her rest, and then with 
that ar' foot hoverin' round in the air softly, like an angel's 
wing, and a gentle, dreamy kind o' look in them eyes, she 
lites out ! Don't ye. Jinny ? Thar ! jist ez I told ye," 
continued Dan, with an artist's noble forgetfulness of self, 



^^ Jinny!' 299 

as he slowly crawled from the splintered ruin of the barrel 
on which he had been sitting. " Thar ! did ye ever see the 
like ! Did ye dream that all the while I was talkin' she was 
a meditatin' that ? " 

The same artistic perception and noble reticence distin- 
guished her bray. It was one of which a less sagacious 
animal would have been foolishly vain or ostentatiously 
prodigal. It was a contralto of great compass and pro- 
fundity — reaching from low G to high C — perhaps a trifle 
stronger in the lower register, and not altogether free from 
a nasal falsetto in the upper. Daring and brilliant as it was 
in the middle notes, it was perhaps more musically remark- 
able for its great sustaining power. The element of surprise 
always entered into the hearer's enjoyment ; long after any 
ordinary strain of human origin would have ceased, faint 
echoes of Jinny's last note were perpetually recurring. But 
it was as an intellectual and moral expression that her bray 
was perfect. As far beyond her size as were her aspirations, 
it was a free and running commentary of scorn at all created 
things extant, wuth ironical and sardonic additions that were 
terrible. It reviled all human endeavour, it quenched all 
sentiments, it suspended frivolity, it scattered reverie, it 
paralysed action. It was omnipotent. More wonderful and 
characteristic than all, the very existence of this tremendous 
organ was unknown to the camp for six months after the 
arrival of its modest owner, and only revealed to them under 
circumstances that seemed to point more conclusively than 
ever to her rare discretion. 

It was the beginning of a warm night and the middle of 
a heated political discussion. Sawyer's Bar had gathered 
in force at the Crossing, and by the light of flaring pine 
torches, cheered and applauded the rival speakers who 
from a rude platform addressed the excited multitude. 
Partisan spirit at that time ran high in the foot-hills ; 



300 ''Jinny!' 

crimination and recrimination, challenge, reply, accusation, 
and retort had already inflamed the meeting, and Colonel 
Bungstarter, after a withering review of his opponent's 
policy, culminated with a personal attack upon the career 
and private character of the eloquent and chivalrous 
Colonel Culpepper Starbottle of Siskiyou. That eloquent 
and chivalrous gentleman was known to be present ; it 
was rumoured that the attack was expected to provoke a 
challenge from Colonel Starbottle which would give Bung- 
starter the choice of weapons, and deprive Starbottle of his 
advantage as a dead shot. It was whispered also that 
the sagacious Starbottle, aware of this fact, would retaliate 
in kind so outrageously as to leave Bungstarter no recourse 
but to demand satisfaction on the spot. As Colonel Star- 
bottle rose, the eager crowd drew together, elbowing each 
other in rapt and ecstatic expectancy. " He can't get 
even on Bungstarter, onless he allows his sister ran off with 
a nigger, or that he put up his grandmother at draw poker 
and lost her," whispered the Quartz Crusher ; " kin he ? " 
All ears were alert, particularly the very long and hairy ones 
just rising above the railing of the speaker's platform ; for 
Jinny, having a feminine distrust of solitude and a fondness 
for show, had followed her master to the meeting and had 
insinuated herself upon the platform, where way was made 
for her with that frontier courtesy always extended to her 
age and sex. 

Colonel Starbottle, stertorous and purple, advanced to 
the railing. There he unbuttoned his collar and laid his 
neckcloth aside, then with his eye fixed on his antagonist 
he drew off his blue frock-coat, and thrusting one hand 
into his ruffled shirt front, and raising the other to the 
dark canopy above him, he opened his vindictive lips. The 
action, the attitude, were Starbottle's. But the voice was 
not. For at that supreme moment, a bray — so profound, 



'' Jinny y 301 

so appalling, so utterly soul-subduing, so paralysing that 
everything else sank to mere insignificance beside it — filled 
woods and sky and air. For a moment only the multitude 
gasped in speechless astonishment — it was a moment only 
— and then the welkin roared with their shouts. In vain 
silence was commanded, in vain Colonel Starbottle, with 
a ghastly smile, remarked that he recognised in the inter- 
ruption the voice and intellect of the opposition ; the laugh 
continued, the more as it was discovered that Jinny had 
not yet finished, and was still recurring to her original 
theme. " Gentlemen," gasped Starbottle, " any attempt 
by [Hee-haw ! from Jinny] brutal buffoonery to restrict the 
right of free speech to all [a prolonged assent from Jinny] 
is worthy only the dastardly " — but here a diminuendo so 
long drawn as to appear a striking imitation of the 
Colonel's own apoplectic sentences drowned his voice with 
shrieks of laughter. 

It must not be supposed that during this performance 
a vigorous attempt was not made to oust Jinny from the 
platform. But all in vain. Equally demoralising in either 
extremity. Jinny speedily cleared a circle with her flying 
hoofs, smashed the speaker's table and water pitcher, sent 
the railing flying in fragments over the cheering crowd, and 
only succumbed to two blankets, in which, with her head 
concealed, she was finally dragged, half captive, half victor, 
from the field. Even then a muffled and supplemental 
bray that came from the woods at intervals drew half the 
crowd away and reduced the other half to mere perfunc- 
tory hearers. The demoralised meeting was adjourned; 
Colonel Starbottle's withering reply remained unuttered, 
and the Bungstarter party were triumphant. 

For the rest of the evening Jinny was the heroine of the 
hour, but no cajolery nor flattery could induce her to again 
exhibit her powers. In vain did Dean of Angel's extern- 



302 ''Jinny!' 

porise a short harangue in the hope that Jinny would be 
tempted to reply ; in vain was every provocation offered 
that might sting her sensitive nature to eloquent revolt. 
She replied only with her heels. Whether or not this 
was simple caprice, or whether she was satisfied with her 
maiden effort, or indignant at her subsequent treatment, she 
remained silent. '' She made her little game," said Dan, 
who was a political adherent of Starbottle's, and who yet 
from that day enjoyed the great speaker's undying hatred, 
"and even if me and her don't agree on politics — yoti let 
her alone." Alas, it would have been well for Dan if he 
could have been true to his instincts, but the offer of one 
hundred dollars from the Bungstarter party proved too 
tempting. She passed irrevocably from his hands into 
those of the enemy. But any reader of these lines will, I 
trust, rejoice to hear that this attempt to restrain free 
political expression in the foot-hills failed signally. For, 
although she was again covertly introduced on the platform 
by the Bungstarters, and placed face to face with Colonel 
Starbottle at Murphy's Camp, she was dumb. Even a 
brass band failed to excite her emulation. Either she had 
become disgusted with politics, or the higher prices paid by 
the party to other and less effective speakers aroused her 
jealousy and shocked her self-esteem, but she remained a 
passive spectator. When the Hon. Sylvester Rourback, 
who received, for the use of his political faculties for a 
single night, double the sum for which she was purchased 
outright, appeared on the same platform with herself, she 
forsook it hurriedly and took to the woods. Here she 
might have starved but for the intervention of one M'Carty, 
a poor market-gardener, who found her, and gave her food 
and shelter under the implied contract that she should 
forsake politics and go to work. The latter she for a long 
time resisted, but as she was considered large enough by 



''Jinny:' 303 

this time to draw a dart, M'Carty broke her to single 
harness, with a severe fracture of his leg and the loss of 
four teeth and a small spring waggon. At length, when she 
could be trusted to carry his wares to Murphy's Camp, and 
could be checked from entering a shop with the cart at- 
tached to her — a fact of which she always affected perfect 
disbelief — her education was considered as complete as 
that of the average Californian donkey. It was still unsafe 
to leave her alone, as she disliked solitude, and always 
made it a point to join any group of loungers with her un- 
necessary cart, and even to follow some good-looking miner 
to his cabin. The first time this peculiarity was discovered 
by her owner was on his return to the street after driving 
a bargain within the walls of the Temperance Hotel. Jinny 
was nowhere to be seen. Her devious course, however, 
was pleasingly indicated by vegetables that strewed the 
road until she was at last tracked to the veranda of the 
Arcade saloon, where she was found looking through the 
window at a game of euchre, and only deterred by the 
impeding cart from entering the building. A visit one 
Sunday to the little Catholic chapel at French Camp, 
where she attempted to introduce an antiphonal service and 
the cart, brought shame and disgrace upon her unlucky 
master. For the cart contained freshly-gathered vegetables, 
and the fact that M'Carty had been Sabbath-breaking was 
painfully evident. Father Sullivan was quick to turn an 
incident that provoked only the risibilities of his audience 
into a moral lesson. " It's the poor dumb beast that has 
a more Christian sowl than Michael," he commented ; but 
here Jinny assented so positively that they were fain to 
drag her away by main force. 

To her eccentric and thoughtless youth succeeded a calm 
maturity, in which her conservative sagacity was steadily 
developed. She now worked for her living, subject, 



304 ^^ Jinny y 

however, to a nice discrimination by which she Hmited 
herself to a certain amount of work, beyond which neither 
threats, beatings, nor cajoleries would force her. At certain 
hours she would start for the stable with or without the in- 
cumbrances of the cart or Michael, turning two long and deaf 
ears on all expostulation or entreaty. " Now, God be good to 
me," said Michael, one day, picking himself out from a ditch 
as he gazed sorrowfully after the flying heels of Jinny, " but 
it's only the second load of cabbages I'm bringin' the day, 
and if she's shtruck now^ it's ruined I am entoirely." But 
he was mistaken ; after two hours of rumination Jinny re- 
turned of her own freewill, having evidently mistaken the 
time, and it is said even consented to draw an extra load to 
make up the deficiency. It may be imagined from this and 
other circumstances that Michael stood a little in awe of 
Jinny's superior intellect, and that Jinny occasionally, with 
the instinct of her sex, presumed upon it. After the 
Sunday episode, already referred to, she was given her 
liberty on that day, a privilege she gracefully recognised by 
somewhat unbending her usual austerity in the indulgence 
of a saturnine humour. She would visit the mining camps, 
and, grazing lazily and thoughtfully before the cabins, 
would, by various artifices and coquetries known to the 
female heart, induce some credulous stranger to approach 
her with the intention of taking a ride. She would submit 
hesitatingly to a halter, allow him to mount her back, and, 
with every expression of timid and fearful reluctance, at 
last permit him to guide her in a laborious trot out of sight 
of human habitation. What happened then was never 
clearly known. In a few moments the camp would be 
aroused by shouts and execrations, and the spectacle of 
Jinny tearing by at a frightful pace, with the stranger 
clinging with his arms around her neck, afraid to slip ofT, 
from terror of her circumvolving heels, and vainly implor- 



''Jinnyr 305 

ing assistance. Agsi^ and again she would dash by the 
applauding groups, adding the aggravation of her voice to 
the danger of her heels, until suddenly wheeling, she would 
gallop to Carter's Pond and deposit her luckless freight in the 
muddy ditch. This practical joke was repeated until one 
Sunday she was approached by Juan Ramirez, a Mexican 
vaquero, booted and spurred, and carrying a riata. A 
crowd was assembled to see her discomfiture. But, to the 
intense disappointment of the camp, Jinny, after quietly 
surveying the stranger, uttered a sardonic bray, and ambled 
away to the little cemetery on the hill, whose tangled chap- 
arral effectually prevented all pursuit by her skilled anta- 
gonist. From that day she forsook the camp, and spent 
her Sabbaths in mortuary reflections among the pine head- 
boards and cold " hie jacets " of the dead. 

Happy would it have been if this circumstance, which 
resulted in the one poetic episode of her life, had occurred 
earlier; for the cemetery was the favourite resort of Miss 
Jessie Lawton, a gentle invalid from San Francisco, who had 
sought the foot-hills for the balsam of pine and fir, and 
in the faint hope that the freshness of the wild roses might 
call back her own. The extended views from the cemetery 
satisfied Miss Lavvton's artistic taste, and here frequently, 
with her sketch-book in hand, she indulged that taste and 
a certain shy reserve which kept her from contact with 
strangers. On one of the leaves of that sketch-book appears 
a study of a donkey's head, being none other than the grave 
features of Jinny, as once projected timidly over the artist's 
shoulder. The preliminaries of this intimacy have never 
transpired, nor is it a settled fact if Jinny made the first 
advances. The result was only known to the men of 
Sawyer's Bar by a vision which remained fresh in their 
memories long after the gentle lady and her four-footed 
friend had passed beyond their voices. As two of the 

VOL. III. u 



3o6 ''Jinny!' 

tunnel-men were returning from work one evening, they 
chanced to look up the little trail, kept sacred from secular 
intrusion, that led from the cemetery to the settlement. In 
the dim twilight, against a sunset sky, they beheld a pale- 
faced girl riding slowly toward them. With a delicate 
instinct, new to these rough men, they drew closer in the 
shadow of the bushes until she passed. There was no mis- 
taking the familiar grotesqueness of Jinny; there was no 
mistaking the languid grace of Miss Lawton. But a wreath 
of wild roses was around Jinny's neck, from her long ears 
floated Miss Jessie's hat ribbons, and a mischievous, girlish 
smile was upon Miss Jessie's face, as fresh as the azaleas in 
her hair. By the next day the story of this gentle apparition 
was known to a dozen miners in camp, and all were sworn to 
secrecy. But the next evening, and the next, from the safe 
shadows of the woods they watched and drank in the beauty 
of that fanciful and all unconscious procession. They kept 
their secret, and never a whisper or footfall from these rough 
men broke its charm or betrayed their presence. The man 
who could have shocked the sensitive reserve of the young 
girl would have paid for it with his life. 

And then one day the character of the procession changed, 
and this little incident having been told, it was permitted 
that Jinny should follow her friend, caparisoned even as be- 
fore, but this time by the rougher but no less loving hands of 
men. When the cortege reached the ferry where the dead 
girl was to begin her silent journey to the sea, Jinny broke 
from those who held her, and after a frantic effort to mount 
the barge fell into the swiftly rushing Stanislaus. A dozen 
stout arms were stretched to save her, and a rope skilfully 
thrown was caught around her feet. For an instant she was 
passive, and, as it seemed, saved. But the next moment 
her dominant instinct returned, and with one stroke of her 
powerful heel she snapped the rope in twain and so drifted 
with her mistress to the sea. 



( 3o; ) 



Ctoo ©amtg of tSe jToot=lpilto* 

It never was clearly ascertained how long they had been 
there. The first settler of Rough-and-Ready — one Low, 
playfully known to his familiars as " The Poor Indian " — 
declared that the Saints were afore his time, and occupied 
a cabin in the brush when he " blazed " his way to the North 
Fork. It is certain that the two were present when the water 
was first turned on the Union Ditch, and then and there 
received the designation of Daddy Downey and Mammy 
Downey, which they kept to the last. As they tottered to- 
ward the refreshment tent, they were welcomed with the 
greatest enthusiasm by the boys ; or, to borrow the more 
refined language of the " Union Recorder," — '' Their gray 
hairs and bent figures, recalling as they did the happy 
paternal eastern homes of the spectators, and the blessings 
that fell from venerable lips when they teft those homes to 
journey in quest of the Golden Fleece on Occidental Slopes, 
caused many to burst into tears." The nearei' facts, that 
many of these spectators were orphans, that a few were 
unable to establish any legal parentage whatever, that others 
had enjoyed a State's guardianship and discipline, and that 
a majority had left their parental roofs without any embar- 
rassing preliminary formula, were mere passing clouds that 
did not dim the golden imagery of the writer. From that 
day the Saints were adopted as historical lay figures, and 
entered at once into possession of uninterrupted gratuities 
and endowment. 



3o8 Tzvo Saints of the Foot-Hills. 

It was not strange that, in a country largely made up ot 
ambitious and reckless youth, these two — types of conser- 
vative and settled forms — should be thus celebrated. Apart 
from any sentiment or veneration, they were admirable foils 
to the community's youthful progress and energy. They 
were put forward at every social gathering, occupied promi- 
nent seats on the platform at every public meeting, walked 
first in every procession, were conspicuous at the frequent 
funeral and rarer wedding, and were godfather and god- 
mother to the first baby born in Rough-and-Ready. At the 
first poll opened in that precinct, Daddy Downey cast the 
first vote, and, as was his custom on all momentous occa- 
sions, became volubly reminiscent. "The first vote I ever 
cast," said Daddy, "was for Andrew Jackson — the father o* 
some on you peart young chaps wasn't born then ; he ! he ! 
— that was 'way long in '33, wasn't it ? I disremember now, 
but if Mammy was here, she bein' a school-gal at the time, 
she could say. But my memory's failin' me. I'm an old 
man, boys; yet I Hkes to see the young ones go ahead. 
I recklect that thar vote from a suckumstance. Squire 
Adams was present, and seein' it was my first vote, he put 
a goold piece into my hand, and, sez he, sez Squire Adams, 
'Let that always be a reminder of the exercise of a glorious 
freeman's privilege ! ' He did ; he ! he ! Lord, boys ! I 
feel so proud of ye, that I wish I had a hundred votes to 
cast for ye all." 

It is hardly necessary to say that the memorial tribute of 
Squire Adams was increased tenfold by the judges, inspectors, 
and clerks, and that the old man tottered back to Mammy 
considerably heavier than he came. As both of the rival 
candidates were equally sure of his vote, and each had called 
upon him and offered a conveyance, it is but fair to presume 
they were equally beneficent. But Daddy insisted upon 
walking to the polls, — a distance of two miles, — as a moral- 



Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 309 

example, and a text for the Californian paragraphers, who 
hastened to record that such was the influence of the foot- 
hill chmate, that " a citizen of Rough-and-Ready, aged eighty- 
four, rose at six o'clock, and, after milking two cows, walked 
a distance of twelve miles to the polls, and returned in time 
to chop a cord of wood before dinner." Slightly exagger- 
ated as this statement may have been, the fact that Daddy 
was always found by the visitor to be engaged at his wood- 
pile, which seemed neither to increase nor diminish under 
his axe, a fact, doubtless, owing to the activity of Mammy, 
who was always at the same time making pies, seemed to 
give some credence to the story. Indeed, the wood-pile of 
Daddy Downey was a standing reproof to the indolent and 
sluggish miner. 

" Ole Daddy must use up a pow'ful sight of wood ; every 
time I've passed by his shanty he's been makin' the chips fly. 
But what gets me is, that the pile don't seem to come down," 
said Whisky Dick to his neighbour. 

" Well, you derned fool ! " growled his neighbour, " spose 
some chap happens to pass by thar, and sees the ole 
man doin' at man s work at eighty, and slouches like you 
and me lying round drunk, and that chap, feelin' kinder 
humped, goes up some dark night and heaves a load of 
cut pine over his fence, who's got anything to say about 
it? say?" 

Certainly not the speaker, who had done the act suggested, 
nor the penitent and remorseful hearer, who repeated it 
next day. 

The pies and cakes made by the old woman were, I think, 
remarkable rather for their inducing the same loyal and 
generous spirit than for their intrinsic excellence, and, it may 
be said, appealed more strongly to the nobler aspirations of 
humanity than its vulgar appetite. Howbeit, everybody ate 
Mammy Downey's pies, and thought of his childhood. 



3IO Two Saints of the Foot- Hills. 

" Take 'em, dear boys," the old lady would say ; " it does 
me good to see you eat 'em ; reminds me kinder of my poor 
Sammy, that ef he'd lived, would hev been ez strong and big 
ez you be, but was taken down with lung fever at Sweet- 
water. I kin see him yet ; that's forty year ago, dear ! 
comin' out o' the lot to the bakehouse, and smilin' such a 
beautiful smile, like yours, dear boy, as I handed him a 
mince or a lemming turnover. Dear, dear, how I do run on ! 
and those days is past ! but I seems to live in you again ! " 
The wife of the hotel-keeper, actuated by a low jealousy, 
had suggested that she " seemed to live off them ; " but as 
that person tried to demonstrate the truth of her statement 
by reference to the cost of the raw material used by the old 
lady, it was considered by the camp as too practical and 
economical for consideration. " Besides," added Cy Perkins, 
" ef old Mammy wants to turn an honest penny in her old 
age, let her do it. How would you like your old mother 
to make pies on grub wages ? eh ? " A suggestion that so 
affected his hearer (who had no mother) that he bought 
three on the spot. The quality of these pies had never been 
discussed but once. It is related that a young lawyer from 
San Francisco, dining at the Palmetto restaurant, pushed 
away one of Mammy Downey's pies with every expression 
of disgust and dissatisfaction. At this juncture, Whisky 
Dick, considerably affected by his favourite stimulant, 
approached the stranger's table, and, drawing up a chair, 
sat uninvited before Jiim. 

" Mebbee, young man," he began gravely, "ye don't like 
Mammy Downey's pies ? " 

The stranger replied curtly, and in some astonishment, 
that he did not, as a rule, " eat pie." 

" Young man," continued Dick with drunken gravity, 
** mebbee you're accustomed to Charlotte rusks and blue 
mange ; mebbee ye can't eat unless your grub is got up by 



Two Saints of the Foot-Hills, 3 1 1 

one o' them French cooks ? Yet w— us boys yar in this 
camp— calls that pie— a good— a com-pe-tent pie !" 

The stranger again disclaimed anything but a general dis- 
like of that form of pastry. 

" Young man," continued Dick, utterly unheeding the 
explanation,—" young man, mebbee you onst had an ole— 
a very ole mother, who, tottering down the vale o' years, 
made pies. Mebbee, and it's Hke your blank epicurean 
soul, ye turned up your nose on the ole woman, and went 
back on the pies, and on her ! She that dandled ye when 
ye woz a baby,— a little baby ! Mebbee ye went back on her, 
and shook her, and played off on her, and gave her away- 
dead away ! And now, mebbee young man— I wouldn't hurt 
ye for the world, but mebbee, afore ye leave this yar table, 
ye'll eat that pie ! " 

The stranger rose to his feet, but the muzzle of a dragoon 
revolver in the unsteady hands of Whisky Dick caused him 
to sit down again. He ate the pie, and lost his case like- 
wise before a Rough-and-Ready jury. 

Indeed, far from exhibiting the cynical doubts and distrusts 
of age. Daddy Downey received always with childlike delight 
the progress of modern improvement and energy. " In my 
day, long back in the twenties, it took us nigh a week— a 
week, boys-to get up a barn, and all the young ones— I 
was one then— for miles round at the raisin' ; and yer's you 
boys— rascals ye are, too— runs up this yer shanty for 
Mammy and me 'twixt sun-up and dark ! Eh, eh, you're 
teachin' the old folks new tricks, are ye? Ah, get along, 
you ! " and in playful sim.ulation of anger he would shake 
his white hair and his hickory staff at the " rascals." The 
only indication of the conservative tendencies of age was 
visible in his continual protest against the extravagance of 
the boys. '' Why," he would say, " a family, a hull family,— 
leavin' alone me and the old woman,— mii2:ht be supported 



3 1 2 Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 

on what you young rascals throw away in a single spree. 
Ah, you young dogs, didn't I hear about your scattering 
half-dollars on the stage the other night when that Eyetalian 
Papist was singin'. And that money goes out of Ameriky 
— ivry cent ! " 

There was little doubt that the old couple were saving, 
if not avaricious. But when it was known, through the 
indiscreet volubility of Mammy Downey, that Daddy 
Downey sent the bulk of their savings, gratuities, and gifts, 
to a dissipated and prodigal son in the East, — whose 
photograph the old man always carried with him, it rather 
elevated him in their regard. '' When ye write to that gay 
and festive son o' yourn. Daddy," said Joe Robinson, 
" send him this yer specimen. Give him my compliments, 
and tell him, ef he kin spend money faster than I can, I 
call him ! Tell him, ef he wants a first-class jamboree, to 
kem out here, and me and the boys will show him what a 
square drunk is ! " In vain would the old man continue 
to protest against the spirit of the gift ; the miner generally 
returned with his pockets that much the lighter, and it is 
not improbable a httle less intoxicated than he otherwise 
might have been. It may be premised that Daddy Downey 
was strictly temperate. The only way he managed to avoid 
hurting the feelings of the camp was by accepting the fre- 
quent donations of whisky to be used for the purposes of 
liniment. 

" Next to snake-oil, my son," he would say, " and dilberry- 
juice, — and ye don't seem to pro-duce 'em hereabouts, — ; 
whisky is good for rubbin' onto old bones to make 'em 
limber. But pure cold water, 'sparklin' and bright in its 
liquid light,' and, so to speak, reflectin' of God's own 
linyments on its surfiss, is the best, onless, like jpoor ol' 
Mammy and me, ye gets the dumb-agur from over-use." 

The fame of the Downey couple was not confined to the 



Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 313 

foot-nills. The Rev. Henry Gushington, D.D., of Boston, 
making a bronchial tour of California, wrote to the " Chris- 
tian Pathfinder " an affecting account of his visit to them, 
placed Daddy Downey's age at 102, and attributed the 
recent conversions in Rough-and-Ready to their influence. 
That gifted literary Hessian, Bill Smith, travelling in the 
interests of various capitalists, and the trustworthy corre- 
spondent of four "only independent American journals," 
quoted him as an evidence of the longevity superinduced 
by the cUmate, offered him as an example of the security 
of helpless life and property in the mountains, used him as 
an advertisement of the Union Ditch, and it is said, in 
some vague way, cited him as proving the collateral facts of 
a timber and ore-producing region existing in the foot-hills 
worthy the attention of Eastern capitalists. 

Praised thus by the lips of distinguished report, fostered 
by the care and sustained by the pecuniary offerings of their 
fellow-citizens, the Saints led for two years a peaceful life of 
gentle absorption. To relieve them from the embarrassing 
appearance of eleemosynary receipts, — an embarrassment felt 
more by the givers than the recipients, — the postmastership 
of Rough-and-Ready was procured for Daddy, and the duty 
of receiving and delivering the United States mails performed 
by him, with the advice and assistance of the boys. If a 
few letters went astray at this time, it was easily attributed 
to this undisciplined aid, and the boys themselves were always 
ready to make up the value of a missing money-letter and 
" keep the old man's accounts square." To these functions 
presently were added the treasurerships of the Masons' and 
Odd Fellows' charitable funds, — the old man being far 
advanced in theirrespective degrees, — and even the position 
of almoner of their bounties was superadded. Here, unfor- 
tunately. Daddy's habits of economy and avaricious pro- 
pensity came near making him unpopular, and very often 



314 Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 

needy brothers were forced to object to the quantity and 
quality of the help extended. They always met with more 
generous relief from the private hands of the brothers them- 
selves, and the remark, " that the ol' man was trying to set 
an example, — that he meant well," — and that they would 
yet be thankful for his zealous care and economy. A few, 
I think, suffered in noble silence, rather than bring the old 
man's infirmity to the public notice. 

And so with this honour of Daddy and Mammy, the 
days of the miners were long and profitable in the land of the 
foot-hills. The mines yielded their abundance, the winters 
were singularly open, and yet there was no drouth nor lack 
of water, and peace and plenty smiled on the Sierrean foot- 
hills, from their highest sunny upland to the traiUng falda 
of wild oats and poppies. If a certain superstition got 
abroad among the other camps, connecting the fortunes of 
Rough- an d-Ready with Daddy and Mammy, it was a gentle, 
harmless fancy, and was not, I think, altogether rejected 
by the old people. A certain large, patriarchal, bountiful 
manner, of late visible in Daddy, and the increase of much 
white hair and beard, kept up the poetic illusion, while 
Mammy, day by day, grew more and more like somebody's 
fairy godmother. An attempt was made by a rival camp to 
emulate these paying virtues of reverence, and an aged 
mariner was procured from the Sailor's Snug Harbour in 
San Francisco on trial. But the unfortunate seaman was 
more or less diseased, was not always presentable, through 
a weakness for ardent spirits, and finally, to use the power- 
ful idiom of one of his disappointed foster-children, " up 
and died in a week, without slinging ary blessin'. " 

But vicissitude reaches young and old ahke. Youthful 
Rough-an d-Ready and the Saints had climbed to their 
meridian together, and it seemed fit that they should to- 
gether decline. The first shadow fell with the immigration 



Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 3 1 5 

to Rough-and-Ready of a second aged pair. The land- 
lady of the Independence Hotel had not abated her 
malevolence towards the Saints, and had imported at con- 
siderable expense her grand-aunt and grand-uncle, who had 
been enjoying for some years a sequestered retirement in 
the poorhouse at East Machias. They were indeed very 
old. By what miracle, even as anatomical specimens, they 
had been preserved during their long journey was a mys- 
tery to the camp. In some respects they had superior 
memories and reminiscences. The old man — Abner Trix 
— had shouldered a musket in the war of 181 2 ; his wife, 
Abigail, had seen Lady Washington. She could sing 
hymns ; he knew every text between " the leds " of a 
Bible. There is little doubt but that in many respects, to 
the superficial and giddy crowd of youthful spectators, they 
were the more interesting spectacle. 

Whether it was jealousy, distrust, or timidity that over- 
came the Saints, was never known, but they studiously 
declined to meet the strangers. When directly approached 
upon the subject, Daddy Downey pleaded illness, kept him- 
self in close seclusion, and the Sunday that the Trixes 
attended church in the schoolhouse on the hill, the triumph 
of the Trix party was mitigated by the fact that the 
Downeys were not in their accustomed pew. *'You bet 
that Daddy and Mammy is lying low jest to ketch them 
old mummies yet," explained a Downeyite. For by this 
time schism and division had crept into the camp ; the 
younger and later members of the settlement adhering to 
the Trixes, while the older pioneers stood not only loyal 
to their own favourites, but even, in the true spirit of parti- 
sanship, began to seek for a principle underlying their 
personal feelings. " I tell ye what, boys," observed Sweet- 
water Joe, " if this yer camp is goin' to be run by green- 
norns, and old pioneers, like Daddy and the rest of us, 



3 1 6 Two Samts of the Foot- Hills. 

must take back seats, it's time we emigrated and shoved 
out, and tuk Daddy with us. Why, they're talkin' of rota- 
tion in offiss, and of putting that skeleton that Ma'am 
Decker sets up at the table to take her boarders' appetites 
away, into the post-office in place o' Daddy." And, indeed, 
there were some fears of such a conclusion ; the newer men 
of Rough-and-Ready were in the majority, and wielded a 
more than equal influence of wealth and outside enterprise.' 
"Frisco," as a Downeyite bitterly remarked, "already 
owned half the town." The old friends that rallied around 
Daddy and Mammy were, like most loyal friends in adver- 
sity, in bad case themselves, and were beginning to look 
and act, it was observed, not unlike their old favourites. 

At this juncture Mammy died. 

The sudden blow for a few days seemed to reunite dis- 
severed Rough-and-Ready. Both factions hastened to the 
bereaved Daddy with condolements, and offers of aid and 
assistance. But the old man received them sternly. A 
change had come over the weak and yielding octogenarian. 
Those who expected to find him maudlin, helpless, disconso- 
late, shrank from the cold, hard eyes and truculent voice 
that bade them "begone," and " leave him with his dead." 
Even his own friends failed to make him respond to their 
sympathy, and were fain to j:mLent themselves with his cold 
intimation that both the wishes of his dead wife and his 
own instincts were against any display, or the reception of 
any favour from the camp that might tend to keep up the 
divisions they had innocently created. The refusal of 
Daddy to accept any service offered was so unlike him as 
to have but one dreadful meaning ! The sudden shock 
had turned his brain ! Yet so impressed were they with his 
resolution that they permitted him to perform the last sad 
offices himself, and only a select few of his nearer neighbours 
assisted him in carrying the plain deal coffin from his lonely 



Two Saints of the Foot-Hills, 3 1 7 

cabin in the woods to the still lonelier cemetery on the hill- 
top. When the shallow grave was filled, he dismissed even 
these curtly, shut himself up in his cabin, and for days re- 
mained unseen. It was evident that he was no longer in 
his right mind. 

His harmless aberration was accepted and treated with a 
degree of intelligent delicacy hardly to be believed of so 
rough a community. During his wife's sudden and severe 
illness, the safe containing the funds intrusted to his care 
by the various benevolent associations was broken into and 
robbed, and although the act was clearly attributable to his 
carelessness and preoccupation, all allusion to the fact was 
withheld from him in his severe affliction. When he 
appeared again before the camp, and the circumstances 
were considerately explained to him, with the remark that 
*' the boys had made it all right," the vacant, hopeless, 
unintelligent eye that he turned upon the speaker showed 
too plainly that he had forgotten all about it. " Don't 
trouble the old man," said Whisky Dick, with a burst of 
honest poetry. *' Don't ye see his memory's dead, and 
lying there in the coffin with Mammy?" Perhaps the 
speaker was nearer right than he imagined. 

Failing in religious consolation, they took various means 
of diverting his mind with worldly amusements, and one 
was a visit to a travelling variety troupe, then performing 
in the town. The result of the visit was briefly told by 
Whisky Dick. " Well, sir, we went in, and I sot the old 
man down in a front seat, and kinder propped him up with 
some other of the fellers round him, and there he sot as 
silent and awful ez the grave. And then that fancy dancer, 
Miss Grace Somerset, comes in, and dern my skin, ef the 
old man didn't get to trembling and fidgeting all over, as 
she cut them pidgin wings. I tell ye what, boys, men is 
men, way down to their boots, — whether they're crazy or 



3 1 8 Two Saints of the Foot- Hills. 

not ! Well, he took on so, that I'm blamed if at last that 
gal herself didn't notice him ! and she ups, suddenly, and 
blows him a kiss — so ! with her fingers ! " 

Whether this narration were exaggerated or not, it is 
certain that the old man Downey every succeeding night of 
the performance was a spectator. That he may have aspired 
to more than that was suggested a day or two later in the 
following incident : A number of the boys were sitting 
around the stove in the Magnolia saloon, listening to the 
onset of a winter storm against the windows, when Whisky 
Dick, tremulous, excited, and bristling with rain-drops and 
information, broke in upon them. 

"Well, boys, I've got just the biggest thing out. Efl 
hadn't seed it myself, I wouldn't hev believed it ! " 

" It ain't thet ghost ag'in ?" growled Robinson, from the 
depths of his arm-chair ; " thet ghost's about played." 

" Wot ghost ? " asked a new-comer. 

"Why, ole Mammy's ghost, that every feller about yer 
sees when he's half full and out late o' nights." 

"Where?" 

" Where ? Why, where should a ghost be ? Meanderin' 
round her grave on the hill, yander, in course." 

" It's suthin bigger nor thet, pard," said Dick confidently ; 
" no ghost km rake down the pot ag'in the keerds I've got 
here. This ain't no bluff ! " 

" Well, go on ! " said a dozen excited voices. 

Dick paused a moment diffidently, with the hesitation of 
an artistic raconteur. 

"Well," he said, with affected deliberation, "let's see! 
It's nigh onto an hour ago ez I was down thar at the variety 
show. When the curtain was down betwixt the ax, I looks 
round fer Daddy. No Daddy thar ! I goes out and asks 
some o' the boys. ' Daddy was there a minnit ago,' they 
say ; * must hev gone home.' Bein' kinder responsible for 



Two Saints of the Foot-Hills. 319 

the old man, I hangs around, and goes out in the hall and 
sees a passage leadin' behind the scenes. Now the queer 
thing about this, boys, ez that suthin in my bones tells 
me the old man is thar. I pushes in, and, sure as a 
gun, I hear his voice. Kinder pathetic, kinder pleadin', 
kinder" 

" Love-makin ! " broke in the impatient Robinson. 

" You've hit it, pard, — you've rung the bell every time ! 
But she says, * I wants thet money down,- or I'll ' — and here 
I couldn't get to hear the rest. And then he kinder coaxes, 
and she says, sorter sassy, but listenin' all the time, — 
woman like, ye know, Eve and the sarpint ! — and she says, 
* I'll see to-morrow.' And he says, * You won't -blow on 
me ? ' and I gets excited and peeps in, and may I be teeto- 
tally durned ef I didn't see " 

" What?" yelled the crowd. 

" Why, Daddy on his knees to thai there fancy dancer ^ 
Grace Somerset ! Now, if Mammy's ghost is meanderin ' 
round, why, et's about time she left the cemetery and put 
in an appearance in Jackson's Hall. Thet's all ! " 

''Look yar, boys," said Robinson, rising, " I don't know 
ez it's the square thing to spile Daddy's fun. I don't object 
to it, provided she ain't takin' in the old man, and givin' 
him dead away. But ez we're his guardeens, I propose that 
we go down thar and see the lady, and find out ef her inten- 
tions is honourable. If she means marry, and the old man 
persists, why, I reckon we kin give the young couple a send- 
off thet won't disgrace this yer camp ! Hey, boys ? " 

It is unnecessary to say that the proposition was received 
with acclamation, and that the crowd at once departed on 
their discreet mission. But the result was never known, for 
the. next morning brought a shock to Rough-and-Ready 
before which all other interest paled to nothingness. 

The grave of Mammy Downey was found violated and 



320 Two Saints of the Foot- Hills. 

despoiled ; the coffin opened, and half filled with the papers 
and accounts of the robbed benevolent associations; but 
the body of Mammy was gone ! Nor, on examination, did 
it appear that the sacred and ancient form of that female 
had ever reposed in its recesses ! 

Daddy Downey was not to be found, nor is it necessary 
to say that the ingenuous Grace Somerset was also missing. 

For three days the reason of Rough-and-Ready trembled 
in the balance. No work was done in the ditches, in the 
flume, nor in the mills. Groups of men stood by the grave 
of the lamented relict of Daddy Downey, as open-mouthed 
and vacant as that sepulchre. Never since the great earth- 
quake of '52 had Rough-and-Ready been so stirred to its 
deepest foundations. 

On the third day the sheriff of Calaveras — a quiet, 
gentle, thoughtful man — arrived in town, and passed from 
one to the other of excited groups, dropping here and there 
detached but concise and practical information. 

" Yes, gentlemen, you are right, Mrs. Downey is not 
dead, because there wasn't any Mrs. Downey ! Her part 
was played by George F. Fenwick, of Sydney, — a ' ticket- 
of-leave-man,' who was, they say, a good actor. Downey? 
Oh yes ! Downey was Jem Flanigan, who, in '52, used to 
run the variety troupe in Australia, where Miss Somerset 
made her debut. Stand back a little, boys. Steady ! The 
money .'' Oh yes, tliey've got away with that, sure ! How 
are ye, Joe ? Why, you're looking well and hearty ! I 
rather expected ye court week. How's things your way ? '* 

" Then they were only play-actors, Joe Hall ? " broke in 
a dozen voices. 

" I reckon ! " returned the sheriff coolly. » 

"And for a matter o' five blank years," said Whisky 
Dick sadly, " they played this camp ! " 



( 321 ) 



" mf\o toajG? mg ilDiuiet jTrienti ? " 

*' Stranger ! " 

The voice was not loud, but clear and penetrating. I 
looked vainly up and down the narrow, darkening trail. 
No one in the fringe of alder ahead ; no one on the gullied 
slope behind. 

" Oh ! stranger ! " 

This time a little impatiently. The Californian classical 
vocative, " Oh," always meant business. 

I looked up, and perceived for the first time on the ledge, 
thirty feet above me, another trail parallel with my own, 
and looking down upon me through the buckeye bushes a 
small man on a black horse. 

Five things to be here noted by the circumspect moun- 
taineer. jFirs^, the locality, — lonely and inaccessible, and 
away*from the regular faring of teamsters and miners. 
Second/}', the stranger's superior knowledge of the road, 
from the fact that the other trail was unknown to the 
ordinary traveller. Thirdly^ that he was well armed and 
equipped. Fourthly, that he was better mounted. Fifthly, 
that any distrust or timidity arising from the contemplation 
of these facts had better be kept to one's self. 

All this passed rapidly through my mind as I returned 
his salutation. 

" Got any tobacco ? " he asked. 

I had, and signified the fact, holding up the pouch 
inquiringly. 

VOL. III. X 



'322 ''Who was my Quiet Friend V^ 

" All right, I'll come down. Ride on, and I'll jine ye 
on the slide." 

*'The slide !" Here was a new geographical discovery 
as odd as the second trail. I had ridden over the trail a 
dozen times, and seen no communication between the ledge 
and trail. Nevertheless, I went on a hundred yards or so, 
when there was a sharp crackling in the underbrush, a 
shower of stones on the trail, and my friend plunged through 
the bushes to my side, down a grade that I should scarcely 
have dared to lead my horse. There was no doubt he was 
an accomplished rider, — another fact to be noted. 

As he ranged beside me, I found I was not mistaken as 
to his size ; he was quite under the medium height, and 
but for a pair of cold, grey eyes, was rather commonplace 
in feature. 

" You've got a good horse there," I suggested. 

He was filling his pipe from my pouch, but looked up a 
little surprised, and said, " Of course." He then puffed 
away with the nervous eagerness of a man long deprived 
of that sedative. Finally, between the puffs, he asked me 
whence I came. 

I replied, " From Lagrange." 

He looked at me a few moments curiously, but t)n my 
adding that I had only halted there for a few hours, he said : 
" I thought I knew every man between Lagrange and 
Indian Spring, but somehow I sorter disremember your 
face and your name." 

Not particularly caring that he should remember either, 
I replied half laughingly, that, as I Hved the other side of 
Indian Spring, it was quite natural. He took the rebuif, if 
such it was, so quietly that as an act of mere perfunctory 
politeness I asked him where he came from. 

'* Lagrange." 

" And are you going to " 



" Who was my Quiet Friend f 323 

"Well ! that depends pretty much on how things pan out, 
and whether I can make the riffle." He let his hand rest 
quite unconsciously on the leathern holster of his dragoon 
revolver, yet with a strong suggestion to me of his ability 
"to make the riffle" if he wanted to, and added: "But 
just now I was reck'nin' on taking a little pasear with you." 

There was nothing offensive in his speech save its famili- 
arity, and the reflection, perhaps, that whether I objected 
or not, he was quite able to do as he said. I only replied 
that if our J?a sear was prolonged beyond Heavy-tree Hill, I 
should have to borrow his beast. To my surprise he replied 
quietly, " That's so," adding that the horse was at my dis- 
posal when he wasn't using it, and /la// of it when he was. 
" Dick has carried double many a time before this," he con- 
tinued, " and kin do it again ; when your mustang gives 
out I'll give you a lift and room to spare." 

I could not help smiling at the idea of appearing before 
the boys at Red Gulch en croupe with the stranger ; but 
neither could I help being oddly affected by the suggestion 
that his horse had done double duty before. " On what 
occasion, and why ? " was a question I kept to myself We 
were ascending the long, rocky flank of the divide; the 
narrowness of the trail obliged us to proceed slowly, and in 
file, so that there was little chance for conversation, had he 
been disposed to satisfy my curiosity. 

We toiled on in silence, the buckeye giving way to chimi- 
sal, the westering sun, reflected again from the blank walls 
beside us, blinding our eyes with its glare. The pines in 
the canon below were olive gulfs of heat, over which a hawk 
here and there drifted lazily, or, rising to our level, cast a 
weird and gigantic shadow of slowly moving wings on the 
mountain side. The superiority of the stranger's horse led 
him often far in advance, and made me hope that he might 
forget me entirely, or push on, growing weary of waiting. 



324 *' Who was my Quiet Friend V 

But regularly he would halt by a boulder, or reappear from 
some chimisal, where he had patiently halted. I was begin- 
ning to hate him mildly, when at one of those reappearances 
he drew up to my side, and asked me how I liked Dickens ! 

Had he asked my opinion of Huxley or Darwin, I could 
not have been more astonished. Thinking it were possible 
that he referred to some local celebrity of Lagrange, I said, 
hesitatingly : — 

" You mean " 

" Charles Dickens. Of course you've read him ? Which 
of his books do you Uke best ? " 

I replied with considerable embarrassment that I liked 
them all, — as I certainly did. 

He grasped my hand for a moment with a fervour quite 
unlike his usual phlegm, and said, "That's me, old man. 
Dickens ain't no slouch. You can count on him pretty 
much all the time." 

With this rough preface, he launched into a criticism of 
the novelist, which for intelligent sympathy and hearty 
appreciation I had rarely heard equalled. Not only did he 
dwell upon the exuberance of his humour, but upon the 
power of his pathos and the all-pervading element of his 
poetry. I looked at the man in astonishment. I had con- 
sidered myself a rather diligent student of the great master 
of fiction, but the stranger's felicity of quotation and illus- 
tration staggered me. It is true, that his thought was not 
always clothed in the best language, and often appeared in 
the slouching, slangy undress of the place and period, yet 
it never was rustic nor homespun, and sometimes struck 
me with its precision and fitness. Considerably softened 
toward him, I tried him with other literature. But vainly. 
Beyond a few of the lyrical and emotional poets, he knew 
nothing. Under the influence and enthusiasm of his own 
speech, he himself had softened considerably ; offered to 



" Who was my Quiet Friend?" 325 

change horses with me, readjusted my saddle with profes- 
sional skill, transferred my pack to his own horse, insisted 
upon my sharing the contents of his whisky flask, and notic- 
ing that I was unarmed, pressed upon me a silver-mounted 
Derringer, which he assured me he could " warrant." These 
various offices of good will and the diversion of his talk be- 
guiled me from noticing the fact that the trail was beginning 
to become obscure and unrecognisable. We were evi- 
dently pursuing a route unknown before to me. I pointed 
out the fact to my companion, a little impatiently. He 
instantly resumed his old manner and dialect 

" Well, I reckon one trail's as good as another, and 
what hev ye got to say about it 1 " 

I pointed out, with some dignity, that I preferred the old 
trail. 

" Mebbe you did. But you're jiss now takin' a pasear 
with 77ie. This yer trail will bring you right into Indian 
Spring, and oimoiiced, and no questions asked. Don't you 
mind now, I'll see you through." 

It was necessary here to make some stand against my 
strange companion. I said firmly, yet as politely as I 
could, that I had proposed stopping over night with a 
friend. 

"Whar?" 

I hesitated. The friend was an eccentric Eastern man, 
well known in the locality for his fastidiousness and his 
habits as a recluse. A misanthrope, of ample family and 
ample means, he had chosen a secluded but picturesque 
valley in the Sierras where he could rail against the world 
without opposition. " Lone Valley," or " Boston Ranch," 
as it was familiarly called, was the one spot that the average 
miner both respected and feared. Mr. Sylvester, its pro- 
prietor, had never affiliated with "the boys," nor had he 
ever lost their respect by any active opposition to their ideas. 



326 " Who was my Qidet Friend?'^ 

If seclusion had been his object, he certainly was gratified. 
Nevertheless, in the darkening shadows of the night, and 
on a lonely and unknown trail, I hesitated a little at repeat- 
ing his name to a stranger of whom I knew so little. But 
my mysterious companion took the matter out of my 
hands. 

" Look yar," he said, suddenly, " thar ain't but one place 
'twixt yer and Indian Spring whar ye can stop, and that is 
Sylvester's." 

I assented, a little sullenly. 

"Well," said the stranger, quietly, and with a slight 
suggestion of conferring a favour on me, " ef yer pointed 
for Sylvester's — why — / don^t 7?iind sfoppi?ig thar with ye. 
It's a little off the road — I'll lose some time — but taking it 
by and large, I don't much mind." 

I stated, as rapidly and as strongly as I could, that my 
acquaintance with Mr. Sylvester did not justify the intro- 
duction of a stranger to his hospitality ; that he was unlike 
most of the people here, — in short, that he was a queer 
man, &c., &c. 

To my surprise my companion answered quietly : " Oh, 
that's all right. I've heerd of him. Ef you don't feel like 
checking me through, or if you'd rather put ' C. O. D.' on 
my back, why it's all the same to me. I'll play it alone. 
Only you just count me in. Say * Sylvester ' all the time. 
That's me ! " 

What could I oppose to this man's quiet assurance ? I 
felt myself growing red -with anger and nervous with embar- 
rassment. What would the correct Sylvester say to me ? 
What would the girls, — I was a young man then, and had 
won an entree to their domestic circle by my reserve, 
known by a less complimentary adjective among "the 
boys," — what would they say to my new acquaintance ? 
Yet I certainly could not object to his assuming all risks on 



*' Who was my Quiet Friend?'^ 327 

his own personal recognisances, nor could I resist a certain 
feeling of shame at my embarrassment. 

We were beginning to descend. In the distance below 
us already twinkled the lights in the solitary rancho of Lone 
Valley. I turned to my companion. " But you have for- 
gotten that I don't even know your name. What am I to 
call you ? " 

"That's so," he said, musingly. "Now, let's see. 
'Kearney' would be a good name. It's short and easy 
like. Thar's a street in 'Frisco the same title ; Kearney it 
is." 

" But " I began impatiently. 

" Now you leave all that to me," he interrupted, with a 
superb self-confidence that I could not but admire. " The 
name ain't no account. It's the man that's responsible. 
Ef I was to lay for a man that I reckoned was named 
Jones, and after I fetched him I found out on the inquest 
that his real name was Smith, that wouldn't make no 
matter, as long as I got the man." 

The illustration, forcible as it was, did not strike me as 
offering a prepossessing introduction, but we were already 
at the rancho. The barking of dogs brought Sylvester to 
the door of the pretty little cottage which his taste had 
adorned. 

I briefly introduced Mr. Kearney. " Kearney will do — 
Kearney's good enough for me," commented the soi-disant 
Kearney half-aloud, to my own horror and Sylvester's 
evident mystification, and then he blandly excused himself 
for a moment that he might personally supervise the care 
of his own beast. When he was out of ear-shot I drew the 
puzzled Sylvester aside. 

" I have picked up — I mean I have been picked up on 
the road by a gentle maniac, whose name is not Kearney. 
He is well armed and quotes Dickens. With care, acquies- 



328 *' Who was my Quiet Friend?'^ 

cence in his views on all subjects, and general submission 
to his commands, he may be placated. Doubtless the 
spectacle of your helpless family, the contemplation of your 
daughter's beauty and innocence, may touch his fine sense 
of humour and pathos. Meanwhile, Heaven help you, and 
forgive me." 

I ran upstairs to the little den that my hospitable host 
had kept always reserved for me in my wanderings. I 
lingered some time over my ablutions, hearing the languid, 
gentlemanly drawl of Sylvester below, mingled with the 
equally cool, easy slang of my mysterious acquaintance. 
When I came down to the sitting-room I was surprised, 
however, to find the self-styled Kearney quietly seated on 
the sofa, the gentle May Sylvester, the "Lily of Lone 
Valley," sitting with maidenly awe and unaffected interest 
on one side of him, while on the other that arrant flirt, her 
cousin Kate, was practising the pitiless archery of her eyes, 
with an excitement that seemed almost real. 

" Who is your deliciously cool friend ? " she managed to 
whisper to me at supper, as I sat utterly dazed and bewil- 
dered between the enrapt May Sylvester, who seemed to 
hang upon his words, and this giddy girl of the period, who 
was emptying the battery of her charms in active rivalry 
upon him. " Of course we know his name isn't Kearney. 
But how romantic ! And isn't he perfectly lovely ? And 
who is he ? " 

I replied with severe irony that I was not aware what 
foreign potentate was then travelling incognito in the Sierras 
of California, but that when his royal highness was pleased 
to inform me, I should be glad to introduce him properly. 
*' Until then," I added, " I fear the acquaintance must be 
Morganatic." 

" You're only jealous of him," she said pertly. " Look 
at May — she is completely fascinated. And her father, too." 



" Who was my Quiet Friend?'' 329 

And actually, the languid, world-sick, cynical Sylvester was 
regarding him with a boyish interest and enthusiasm almost 
incompatible with his nature. Yet I submit honestly to the 
clear-headed reason of my own sex, that I could see 
nothing more in the man than I have already delivered to 
the reader. 

In the middle of an exciting story of adventure, of which 
he, to the already prejudiced mind of his fair auditors, was 
evidently the hero, he stopped suddenly. 

" It's only some pack train passing the bridge on the 
lower trail," explained Sylvester ; "go on." 

" It may be my horse is a trifle oneasy in the stable," 
said the alleged Kearney ; " he ain't used to boards and 
covering." Heaven only knows what wild and delicious 
revelation lay in the statement of this fact, but the girls 
looked at each other with cheeks pink with excitement as 
Kearney arose, and with quiet absence of ceremony quitted 
the table. 

" Ain't he just lovely ? " said Kate, gasping for breath, 
" and so witty." 

"Witty!" said the gentle May, with just the slightest 
trace of defiance in her sweet voice ; " witty, my dear? why, 
don't you see that his heart is just breaking with pathos ? 
Witty, indeed ; why, when he was speaking of that poor 
Mexican woman that was hung, I saw the tears gather in 
his eyes. Witty, indeed ! " 

" Tears," laughed the cynical Sylvester, " tears, idle tears. 
Why, you silly children, the man is a man of the world, a 
philosopher, quiet, observant, unassuming." 

" Unassuming ! " Was Sylvester intoxicated, or had the 
mysterious stranger mixed the "insane verb" with the family 
pottage? He returned before I could answer this self-asked 
inquiry, and resumed coolly his broken narrative. Finding 
myself forgotten in the man I had so long hesitated to in- 



330 ** Who was my Quiet Friend f 

troduce to my friends, I retired to rest early, only to hear, 
through the thin partitions, two hours later, enthusiastic 
praises of the new guest from the voluble lips of the girls, 
as they chatted in the next room before retiring. 

At midnight I was startled by the sound of horses' hoofs 
and the jingling of spurs below. A conversation between 
my host and some mysterious personage in the darkness 
was carried on in such a low tone that I could not learn 
its import. As the cavalcade rode away I raised the 
window. 

" What's the matter ? " 

" Nothing," said Sylvester, coolly, " only another one of 
those playful homicidal freaks peculiar to the country. A 
man was shot by Cherokee Jack over at Lagrange this 
morning, and that was the sheriff of Calaveras and his 
posse hunting him. I told him I'd seen nobody but you 
and your friend. By the way, I hope the cursed noise 
hasn't disturbed him. The poor fellow looked as if he 
wanted rest." 

I thought so too. Nevertheless, I went softly to his 
room. It was empty. My impression was that he had 
distanced the sheriff of Calaveras about two hours. 



( 33^ ) 



**a Courist from Jnjianng." 

We first saw him from the deck of the " Unser Fritz," as 
that gallant steamer was preparing to leave the port of New 
York for Plymouth, Havre, and Hamburg. Perhaps it was 
that all objects at that moment became indelibly impressed 
on the memory of the departing voyager — perhaps it was 
that mere interrupting trivialities always assume undue 
magnitude to us when we are waiting for something really 
important — but I retain a vivid impression of him as he 
appeared "on the gangway in apparently hopeless, yet, as it 
afterwards appeared, really triumphant, altercation with the 
German-speaking deck-hands and stewards. He was not 
an heroic figure. Clad in a worn linen duster, his arms 
filled with bags and parcels, he might have been taken for 
a hackman carrying the luggage of his fare. But it was 
noticeable that, although he calmly persisted in speaking 
English and ignoring the voluble German of his anta- 
gonists, he in some rude fashion accomplished his object, 
without losing his temper or increasing his temperature, 
while his foreign enemy was crimson with rage and per- 
spiring with heat ; and that presently, having violated a 
dozen of the ship's regulations, he took his place by the 
side of a very pretty girl, apparently his superior in station, 
who addressed him as "father." As the great ship swung out 
into the stream he was still a central figure on our deck, 
getting into everybody's way, addressing all with equal 



332 ''A Tourist from hijiminy!^ 

familiarity, imperturbable to affront or snub, but always 
doggedly and consistently adhering to one purpose, how- 
ever trivial or inadequate to the means employed. " You're 
sittin' on suthin' o' mine, miss," he began for the third or 
fourth time to the elegant Miss Montmorris, who was re- 
visiting Europe under high social conditions. " Jist rise up 
while I get it — 'twon't take a minit." Not only was that 
lady forced to rise, but to make necessary the rising and 
discomposing of the whole Montmorris party who were 
congregated around her. The missing " suthin' " was dis- 
covered to be a very old and battered newspaper. " It's 
the Cincinnatty Times," he explained, as he quietly took 
it up, oblivious to the indignant glances of the party. " It's 
a little squoshed by your sittin' on it, but it'll do to re-fer 
to. It's got a letter from Payris, showin' the prices o' them 
thar hotels and rist'rants, and I allowed to my darter we 
might want it on the other side. Thar's one or two French 
names thar that rather gets me — mebbee your eyes is 
stronger ; " but here the entire Montmorris party rustled 
away, leaving him with the paper in one hand — the other 
pointing at the paragraph. Not at all discomfited, he 
glanced at the vacant bench, took possession of it with 
his hat, " duster," and umbrella, disappeared, and presently 
appeared again with his daughter, a lank-looking young 
man, and an angular elderly female, and — so replaced the 
Montmorrises. 

When we were fairly at sea he was missed. A pleasing 
belief that he had fallen overboard, or had been left behind 
was dissipated by his appearance one morning, with his 
daughter on one arm, and the elderly female before alluded 
to on the other. The " Unser Fritz " was rolling heavily 
at the time, but with his usual awkward pertinacity he 
insisted upon attempting to walk toward the best part of 
the deck, as he always did, as if it were a right and a duty. 



*^ A To7Lrist from hijiaimyr 333 

A lurch brought him and his uncertain freight in contact 
with the Montmorrises, there was a moment of wild con- 
fusion, two or three seats were emptied, and he was finally- 
led away by the steward, an obviously and obtrusively sick 
man. But when he had disappeared below it was noticed 
that he had secured two excellent seats for his female 
companions. Nobody dared to disturb the elder, nobody 
cared to disturb the younger — who it may be here recorded 
had a certain shy reserve which checked aught but the 
simplest civilities from the male passengers. 

A few days later it was discovered that he was not an 
inmate of the first, but of the second cabin; that the 
elderly female was not his wife as popularly supposed, but 
the room-mate of his daughter in the first cabin. These 
facts made his various intrusions on the saloon deck the 
more exasperating to the Montmorrises, yet the more 
difficult to deal with. Eventually, however, he had, as 
usual, his own way ; no place was sacred, or debarred 
his slouched hat and duster. They were turned out of 
the engine-room .to reappear upon the bridge, they were 
forbidden the forecastle to rise a. ghostly presence beside 
the officer in his solemn supervision of the compass. They 
would have been lashed to the rigging on their way to the 
maintop, but for the silent protest of his daughter's presence 
on the deck. Most of his interrupting familiar conversation 
was addressed to the interdicted "man at the wheel." 

Hitherto I had contented myself with the fascination of 
his presence from afar — wisely, perhaps, deeming it dan- 
gerous to a true picturesque perspective to alter my dis- 
tance, and perhaps, like the best of us, I fear, preferring 
to keep my own idea of him than to run the risk of alter- 
ing it by a closer acquaintance. But one day when I was 
lounging by the stern rail, idly watching the dogged ostenta- 
tion of the screw, that had been steadily intimating, after 



334 * * ^ Tourist from Injiannyy 

the fashion of screws, that it was the only thing in the ship 
with a persistent purpose, the ominous shadow of the 
slouched hat and the trailing duster fell upon me. There 
was nothing to do but accept it meekly. Indeed, my 
theory of the man made me helpless. 

"I didn't know till yesterday who you be," he began 
deliberately, "or I shouldn't hev' been so onsocial. But 
I've allers told my darter that in permiskiss trav'lin' a man 
oughter be keerful of who he meets. I've read some of 
your writin's — read 'em in a paper in Injianny, but I never 
reckoned I'd meet ye. Things is queer, and trav'lin' brings 
all sorter people together. My darter Looeze suspected ye 
from the first, and she worried over it, and kinder put me 
up to this." 

The most delicate flattery could not have done more. 
To have been in the thought of this reserved gentle girl, 
who scarcely seemed to notice even those who had paid her 
attention, was 

" She put me up to it," he continued calmly, " though 
she, herself, hez a kind o' pre-judise again you and your 
writin's — thinkin' them sort o' low down, and the folks 
talked about not in her style — and ye know that's woman's 
nater, and she and Miss Montmorris agree on that point. 
But thar's a few friends with me round yer ez would like 
to see ye." He stepped aside and a dozen men appeared 
in Indian file from behind the round-house, and with a 
solemnity known only to the Anglo-Saxon nature, shook 
my hand deliberately, and then dispersed themselves in 
various serious attitudes against the railings. They were 
honest, well-meaning countrymen of mine, but I could not 
recall a single face. 

There was a dead silence ; the screw, however, osten- 
tatiously went on. "You see what I told you," it said. 
"This is all vapidity and trifling. I'm the only fellow 



** A Tourist from InjiannyT 335 

here with a purpose. Whiz, whiz, whiz ; chug, chug, 
chug ! " 

I was about to make some remark of a general nature, 
when I was greatly relieved to observe my companion's 
friends detach themselves from the railings, and with a 
slight bow and another shake of the hand, severally retire, 
apparently as much relieved as myself My companion, 
who had in the meantime acted as if he had discharged 
himself of a duty, said, *'' Thar oilers must be some one to 
tend to this kind o' thing, or thar's no sociableness. I took 
a deppytation into the cap'n's room yesterday to make some 
proppysitions, and thar's a minister of the Gospel aboard 
ez orter be spoke to afore next Sunday, and I reckon it's 
my dooty, onless," he added with deliberate and formal 
politeness, ^^yotiPd prefer to do it — bein' so to speak a 
public man." 

But the public man hastily deprecated any interference 
with the speaker's functions, and to change the conversa- 
tion, remarked that he had heard that there were a party 
of Cook's tourists on board, and — were not the preceding 
gentlemen of the number? But the question caused the 
speaker to lay aside his hat, take a comfortable position on 
the deck, against the rail, and drawing his knees up under 
his chin to begin as follows : — 

" Speaking o' Cook and Cook's tourists, I'm my own 
Cook ! I reckon I calkilate and know every cent that I'll 
spend 'twixt Evansville, Injianny, and Rome and Naples, 
and everything I'll see." He paused a moment, and lay- 
ing his hand familiarly on my knee, said, " Did I ever tell 
ye how I kem to go abroad ? " 

As we had never spoken together before, it was safe to 
reply that he had 7wt. He rubbed his head softly with 
his hand, knitted his iron grey brows, and then said medi- 
tatively, " No ! it must hev been that head waiter. He 



33^ "^ Tourist from Injianny.''^ 

sorter favours you in the musstache and gen'ral get up. I 
guess it war him I spoke to." 

I thought it must have been. 

" Well, then, this is the way it kem about. I was sittin* 
one night, about three months ago, with my darter Looeze 
— my wife bein' dead some four year — and I was reading 
to her out of the paper about the Exposition. She sez to 
me, quiet-like, — she's a quiet sort o' gal if you ever notissed 
her, — ' I should like to go thar ; ' I looks at her — it was 
the first time sense her mother died that that gal had ever 
asked for anything, or had, so to speak, a wish. It wasn't 
her way. She took everything ez it kem, and durn my 
skin ef I ever could tell whether she ever wanted it to kem 
in any other way. I never told ye this afore, did I ? " 

" No," I said hastily. " Go on." 

He felt his knees for a moment, and then drew a long 
breath. "Perhaps," he began deliberately, "ye don't know 
that Fm a poor man. Seein' me here among these rich 
folks, goin' abroad to Par*?.? with the best o' them, and 
Looeze thar — in the first cabin — a lady, ez she is — ye 
wouldn't b'leeve it, but I'm poor ! I am. Well, sir, when 
that gal looks up at me and sez that — I hadn't but twelve 
dollars in my pocket and I ain't the durned fool that I look 
— but suthin' in me — suthin', you know, a way back in me 
— sez, You shall ! Loo-ey, you shall ! and then I sez — 
repeatin' it, and looking up right in her eyes — ' You shall go, 
Loo-ey ' — did you ever look in my gal's eyes ? " 

I parried that somewhat direct question by another, " But 
the twelve dollars — how did you increase that ? " 

" I raised it to two hundred and fifty dollars. I got odd 
jobs o' work here and there, overtime — I'm a machinist. 
I used to keep this yer over-work from Loo — saying I had 
to see men in the evenin' to get pints about Europe — and 
that — and getting a little money raised on my life-insurance, 



"A Tourist fro7n Injianfiy!' 337 

I shoved her through. And here we is, Chipper and first 
class — all through — that is, Loo is ! " 

" But two hundred and fifty dollars ! And Rome and 
Naples and return ? You can't do it." 

He looked at me cunningly a moment. " Kan't do it ? 
I've done it ! " 

"Done it?" 

" Wall, about the same, I reckon : I've figgered it out. 
Figgers don't lie. I ain't no Cook's tourist : I kin see Cook 
and give him pints. I tell you I've figgered it out to a cent, 
and I've money to spare. Of course I don't reckon to 
travel with Loo. She'll go first class. But I'll be near her 
if it's in the steerage of a ship, or in the baggage car of a 
railroad. I don't need much in the way of grub or clothes, 
and now and then I kin pick up a job. Perhaps you dis- 
remember that row I had down in the engine-room, when 
they chucked me out of it ? " 

I could not help looking at him with astonishment ; there 
was evidently only a pleasant memory in his mind. Yet I 
recalled that I had felt indignant for him and his daughter. 

" Well, that derned fool of a Dutchman, that chief engineer, 
gives me a job the other day. And ef I hadn't just forced 
my way down there, and talked sasy at him, and criticised 
his macheen, he'd hev never knovved I knowed a eccentric 
from a waggon-wheel. Do you see the pint ? " 

I thought I began to see. But I could not help asking what 
his daughter thought of his travelling in this inferior way. 

He laughed. " When I was gettin' up some pints from 
them books of travel I read her a proverb or saying outer 
one o' them, that ' only princes and fools and Americans 
travelled first class.' You see I told her it didn't say 
* women,' for they naterally would ride first class — and 
Amerikan gals being princesses, didn't count. Don't you 
see?" 

VOL. III. Y 



338 ^^ A Tourist fro7n Injiaiiny. ' ' 

If I did not quite follow his logic, nor see my way clearly 
into his daughter's acquiescence through this speech, some 
light may be thrown upon it by his next utterance. I had 
risen with some vague words of congratulation on his suc- 
cess, and was about to leave him, when he called me back. 

" Did I tell ye," he said, cautiously looking around, yet 
with a smile of stifled enjoyment in his face, "did I tell ye 
what that gal — my darter — sed to me ? No, I didn't tell 
ye — nor no one else afore. Come here ! " 

He made me draw down closely into the shadow and 
secrecy of the round-house. 

" That night that I told my gal she should go abroad, I 
sez to her quite chipper like and free, ' I say. Looey,' sez I, 
♦ ye'll be goin' for to marry some o' them counts or dukes, 
or poten-tates, I reckon, and ye'll leave the old man.' And 
she sez, sez she, lookin' me squar in the eye — did ye ever 
notiss that gal's eye ? " 

"She has fine eyes," I replied, cautiously. 

"They is ez clean as a fresh milk-pan and ez bright. 
Nothin' sticks to 'em. Eh ? " 

" You are right." 

" Well, she looks up at me this way," here he achieved a 
vile imitation of his daughter's modest glance, not at all like 
her, " and, looking at me, she sez quietly, ' That's what 
I'm goin' for, and to improve my mind.' He! he ! he! 
It's a fack ! To marry a nobleman, and im-prove her mind ! 
Ha! ha! ha! 

The evident enjoyment that he took in this, and the quiet 
ignoring of anything of a moral quality in his daughter's 
sentiments, or in his thus confiding them to a stranger's ear, 
again upset all my theories. I may say here that it is one 
of the evidences of original character, that it is apt to baffle 
all prognosis from a mere observer's standpoint. But I 
recalled it some months after. 



^^ A Tourist from Injiannyr 339 

We parted in England. It is not necessary, in this brief 
chronicle, to repeat the various stories of *' Uncle Joshua," 
as the younger and more frivolous of our passengers called 
him, nor that two-thirds of the stories repeated were utterly 
at variance with my estimate of the character of the man, 
although I may add that I was also doubtful of the accuracy 
of my own estimate. But one quality was always dominant 
— his resistless, dogged pertinacity and calm imperturba- 
bility ! " He asked Miss Montmorris if she ' minded ' 
singin' a little in the second cabin to liven it up, and added, 
as an inducement, that they didn't know good music from 
bad," said Jack Walker to me. "And when he mended 
the broken lock of my trunk, he abtholutely propothed to 
me to athk couthin Grath if thee didn't want a * koorier ' 
to travel with her to ' do mechanics,' provided thee would 
take charge of that dreadfully deaf-and-dumb daughter of 
his. Wothn't it funny ? Really he'th one of your char- 
acters," said the youngest Miss Montmorris to me as we 
made our adieu on the steamer. 

I am afraid he was 7iot, although he was good enough 
afterwards to establish one or two of my theories regarding 
him. I was enabled to assist him once in an altercation he 
had with a cabman regarding the fare of his daughter, the 
cabman retaining a distinct impression that the father had 
also ridden in some obscure way in or 'upon the same cab 
— as he undoubtedly had — and I grieve to say, foolishly. 
I heard that he had forced his way into a certain great 
house in England, and that he was ignominiously rejected, 
but I also heard that ample apologies had been made to 
a certain quiet modest daughter of his who was without 
on the lawn, and that also a certain Personage, whom I 
approach, even in this vague way, with a capital letter, had 
graciously taken a fancy to the poor child, and had invited 
her to a reception. 



340 '*^ Tourist from lujiannyj' 

But this is only hearsay evidence. So also is the story 
which met me in Paris, that he had been up with his 
daughter in the captive balloon, and that at an elevation of 
several thousand feet from the earth he had made some 
remarks upon the attaching cable and the drum on which 
the cable revolved, which not only excited the interest of 
the passengers, but attracted the attention of the authorities, 
so that he was not only given a gratuitous ascent afterwards, 
but was, I am told, offered some gratuity. But I shall 
restrict this narrative to the few facts of which I was person- 
ally cognisant in the career of this remarkable man. 

I was at a certain entertainment given in Paris by the 
heirs, executors, and assignees of an admirable man, long 
since gathered to his fathers in Pere la Chaise, but whose 
Shakespeare-like bust still looks calmly and benevolently 
down on the riotous revelry of absurd wickedness of which 
he was, when living, the patron saint. The entertainment 
was of such a character that, while the performers were 
chiefly women, a majority of the spectators were men. The 
few exceptions were foreigners, and among them I quickly 
recognised my fair fellow-countrywomen, the Montmorrises. 
" Don't thay that you've theen us here," said the youngest 
Miss Montmorris, " for ith only a lark. Ith awfully funny ! 
And that friend of yourth from Injianny ith here with hith 
daughter." It did not take me long to find my friend 
Uncle Joshua's serious, practical, unsympathetic face in the 
front row of tables and benches. But beside him, to my 
utter consternation, was his shy and modest daughter. In 
another moment I was at his side. " I really think — I am 
afraid — " I began in a whisper, "that you have made a 
mistake. I don't think you can be aware of the character 
of this place. Your daughter " 

" Kem here with Miss Montmorris. She's yer. It's all 
right." 



" A . Tourist from Injianny. " 341 

I was at my wits' end. Happily, at this moment Mdlle, 
Rochefort from the Orangerie skipped out in the quadrille 
immediately before us, caught her light skirts in either 
hand, and executed a pas that lifted the hat from the eyes 
of some of the front spectators and pulled it down over the 
eyes of others. The Montmorrises fluttered away with -a 
half-hysterical giggle and a half-confounded escort. The 
modest-looking Miss Loo, who had been staring at every- 
thing quite indifferently, suddenly stepped forward, took her 
father's arm, and said sharply, " Come." 

At this moment, a voice in English, but unmistakably 
belonging to the politest nation in the world, rose from 
behind the girl, mimickingly. " My God ! it is schocking. 
I bloosh ! O dammit ! " 

In an instant he was in the hands of " Uncle Joshua," 
and forced back clamouring against the railing, his hat 
smashed over his foolish furious face, and half his shirt and 
cravat in the old man's strong grip. Several students rushed 
to the rescue of their compatriot, but one or two Englishmen 
and half a dozen Americans had managed in some mysteri- 
ous way to bound into the arena. I looked hurriedly for 
Miss Louisa, but she was gone. When we had extricated 
the old man from the melee, I asked him where she was. 

" Oh, I reckon she's gone off with Sir Arthur. I saw 
him here just as I pitched into that derned fool." 

"Sir Arthur?" I asked. 

" Yes, an acquaintance o' Loo's." 

" She's in my carriage, just outside," interrupted a hand- 
some young fellow, with the shoulders of a giant and the 
blushes of a girl. " It's all over now, you know. It was 
rather a foolish lark, you coming here with her without 
knowing — you know — anything about it, you know. But 
this way — thank you. She's waiting for you," and in 
another instant he and the old man had vanished. 



342 " A Tourist from Injiannyy 

Nor did I see him again until he stepped into the rail- 
way carriage with me on his way to Liverpool. " You see 
I'm trav'lin first class now," he said, " but goin' home I 
don't mind a trifle extry expense." " Then you've made 
your tour," I asked, " and are successful ? " " Wall, yes, 
we saw Switzerland and Italy, and if I hedn't been short o' 
time, we'd hev gone to Egypt. Mebbee next winter I'll 
run over again to see Loo, and do it." "Then your 
daughter does not return with you ? " I continued in 
some astonishment. "Wall, no — she's visiting some of Sir 
Arthur's relatives in Kent. Sir Arthur is there — perhaps 
you recollect him ? " He paused a moment, looked cauti- 
ously around, and with the same enjoyment he had shown 
on shipboard, said, " Do you remember the joke I told you 
on Loo, when she was at sea ? " 

"Yes." 

"Well, don't ye say anything about it now. But dem 
my skin, if it doesn't look like coming true." 

And it did. 



( 343 ) 



Cfte jTool of jTitie Mv^s, 

He lived alone. I do not think this peculiarity arose from 
any wish to withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the 
camp, nor was it probable that the combined wisdom of 
Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My impression is, 
that he lived alone from choice — a choice he made long 
before the camp indulged in any criticism of his mental 
capacity. He was much given to moody reticence, and 
although to outward appearances a strong man, was always 
complaining of ill health. Indeed, one theory of his isol- 
ation was that it afforded him better opportunities for 
taking medicine, of which he habitually consumed large 
quantities. 

His folly first dawned upon Five Forks through the Post 
Office windows. He was for a long time the only man 
who wrote home by every mail, his letters being always 
directed to the same person — a woman. Now it so hap- 
pened that the bulk of the Five Forks' correspondence was 
usually the other way ; there were many letters received — 
the majority being in the female hand — but very few 
answered. 

The men received them indifferently, or as a matter of 
course ; a few opened and read them on the spot with 
a barely repressed smile of self-conceit, or quite as fre- 
quently glanced over them with undisguised impatience. 
Some of the letters began with " My dear husband," and 



344 '^^^ /t?^/ of Five Forks. 

some were never called for. But the fact that the only 
regular correspondent of Five Forks never received any 
reply became at last quite notorious. Consequently, when 
an envelope was received bearing the stamp of the " Dead 
Letter Office," addressed to the Fool under the more con- 
ventional title of " Cyrus Hawkins," there was quite a 
fever of excitement. I do not know how the secret leaked 
out, but it was eventually known to the camp that the 
envelope contained Hawkins' own letters returned. This 
was the first evidence of his weakness ; any man who re- 
peatedly wrote to a woman who did not reply must be a 
fool. I think Hawkins suspected that his folly was known 
to the camp, but he took refuge in symptoms of chills and 
fever, which he at once developed, and effected a diversion 
with three bottles of Indian chologogue and two boxes of 
pills. At all events, at the end of a week he resumed a 
pen, stiffened by tonics, with all his old epistolatory pertin- 
acity. This time the letters had a new address. 

In those days a popular belief obtained in the mines 
that Luck particularly favoured the foolish and unscientific. 
Consequently, when Hawkins struck a "pocket" in the 
hill-side near his solitary cabin, there was but little surprise. 
" He will sink it all in the next hole," was the prevailing 
belief, predicated upon the usual manner in which the 
possessor of " nigger luck " disposed of his fortune. To 
everybody's astonishment, Hawkins, after taking out about 
eight thousand dollars and exhausting the pocket, did not 
prospect for another. The camp then waited patiently to 
see what he would do with his money. I think, however, 
that it was with the greatest difficulty their indignation was 
kept from taking the form of a personal assault, when it 
became known that he had purchased a draft for eight 
thousand dollars in favour of "that woman." More than 
this, it was finally whispered that the draft was returned to 



The Fool of Five Forks. 345 

him as his letters had been, and that he was ashamed to 
reclaim the money at the express office. " It wouldn't be 
a bad specilation to go East, get some smart gal for a 
hundred dollars to dress herself up and represent that hag, 
and jest freeze onto that eight thousand," suggested a far- 
seeing financier. I may state here that we always alluded 
to Hawkins' fair unknown as " The Hag," without having, 
I am confident, the least justification for that epithet. 

That the Fool should gamble seemed eminently fit and 
proper. That he should occasionally win a large stake, 
according to that popular theory which I have recorded in 
the preceding paragraph, appeared also a not improbable 
or inconsistent fact. That he should, however, break the 
faro bank which Mr. John Hamlin had set up in Five 
Forks, and carry off a sum variously estimated at from ten 
to twenty thousand dollars, and not return the next day 
and lose the money at the same table, really appeared in- 
credible. Yet such was the fact. A day or two passed 
without any known investment of Mr. Hawkins' recently- 
acquired capital. " Ef he allows to send it to that Hag," 
said one prominent citizen, "suthin' ought to be done ! It's 
jest ruinin' the reputation of this yer camp — this sloshin' 
around o' capital on non-residents ez don't claim it ! " " It's 
settin' an example o' extravagance," said another, "ez is 
little better nor a swindle. Thars mor'n five men in this 
camp thet, hearin' thet Hawkins had sent home eight 
thousand dollars, must jest rise up and send home their 
hard earnings, too ! And then to think thet that eight 
thousand was only a bluff, after all, and thet it's lyin' there 
on call in Adams & Co.'s bank ! Well ! I say it's one o' 
them things a vigilance committee oughter look into ! " 

When there seemed no possibility of this repetition of 
Hawkins' folly, the anxiety to know what he had really 
done with his money became intense. At last a self-ap- 



34^ The Fool of Five Forks, 

pointed committee of four citizens dropped artfully, but to 
outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his seclusion. 
When some polite formalities had been exchanged, and 
some easy vituperation of a backward season offered by 
each of the parties, Tom Wingate approached the subject — 

" Sorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the other night, 
didn't ye? He allows you didn't give him no show for 
revenge. I said you wasn't no such d — d fool — didn't I, 
Dick ? " continued the artful Wingate, appealing to a con- 
federate. 

"Yes," said Dick promptly. *' You said twenty thou- 
sand dollars wasn't goin' to be thrown around recklessly. 
You said Cyrus had suthin' better to do with his capital," 
superadded Dick, with gratuitous mendacity. "I disre- 
member now what partickler investment you said he was 
goin' to make with it," he continued, appealing with easy 
indifference to his friend. 

Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked at the 
Fool, who with a troubled face, was rubbing his legs softly. 
After a pause he turned deprecatingly toward his visitors. 

"Ye didn't enny of ye ever hev a sort of tremblin' in 
your legs — a kind o' shakiness from the knee down? 
Suthin'," he continued, slightly brightening with his topic; 
"suthin' that begins like chills, and yet ain't chills. A 
kind o' sensation of goneness here, and a kind o' feelin' as 
if you might die suddent ! When Wright's Pills don't 
somehow reach the spot, and Quinine don't fetch you ? " 

" No ! " said Wingate, with a curt directness, and the 
air of authoritatively responding for his friends. "No, 
never had. You was speakin' of this yer investment." 

"And your bowels all the time irregular ! " continued 
Hawkins, blushing under Wingate's eye, and yet clinging 
despairingly to his theme Hke a shipwrecked mariner to his 
plank. 



The Fool of Five Forks. 347 

Wingate did not reply, but glanced significantly at the 
rest. Hawkins evidently saw this recognition of his mental 
deficiency, and said apologetically, " You was saying suthin' 
about my investment ? " 

" Yes," said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost take Haw- 
kins' breath away — " the investment you made in " 

" Rafferty's Ditch," said the Fool, timidly. 

For a moment the visitors could only stare blankly at 
each other. " Rafferty's Ditch," the one notorious failure 
of Five Forks ! Rafferty's Ditch, the impracticable scheme 
of an utterly unpractical man ; Rafferty's Ditch, a ridiculous 
plan for taking water that could not be got to a place where 
it wasn't wanted ! Rafferty's Ditch, that had buried the 
fortunes of Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in its 
muddy depths ! 

" And thet's it — is it ? " said Wingate, after a gloomy 
pause. " Thet's it ! I see it all now, boys. That's how 
ragged Pat Rafferty went down to San Francisco yesterday 
in store clothes, and his wife and four children went off in 
a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet's w^hy them ten workmen 
of his, ez hedn't a cent to bless themselves with, was playin' 
billiards last night and eatin' isters. Thet's whar that 
money kum frum — one hundred dollars — to pay for thet 
long advertisement of the new issue of Ditch stock in the 
Thnes yesterday. Thet's why them six strangers were booked 
at the Magnolia Hotel yesterday. Don't you see — it's thet 
money and thet Fool ! " 

The Fool sat silent. The visitors rose without a word. 

" You never took any of them Indian Vegetable Pills ? " 
asked Hawkins timidly, of Wingate. 

" No," roared Wingate, as he opened the door. 

" They tell me that took with the Panacea — they was out 
o' the Panacea when I went to the drug store last week — 
they say that, took with the Panacea, they always effect a 



348 The Fool of Five Forks. 

certing cure." — But by this time Wingate and his disgusted 
friends had retreated, slamming the door on the Fool and 
his ailments. 

Nevertheless in six months the whole affair was forgotten, 
the money had been spent — the " Ditch " had been 
purchased by a company of Boston capitalists, fired by the 
glowing description of an Eastern tourist, who had spent 
one drunken night at Five Forks — and I think even the 
mental condition of Hawkins might have remained undis- 
turbed by criticism, but for a singular incident. 

It was during an exciting political campaign, when party 
feeling ran high, that the irascible Captain McFadden, of 
Sacramento, visited Five Forks. During a heated discussion 
in the Prairie Rose Saloon words passed between the Cap- 
tain and the Honourable Calhoun Bungstarter, ending in a 
challenge. The Captain bore the infelix reputation of being 
a notorious duellist and a dead shot : the Captain was un- 
popular ; the Captain was believed to have been sent by the 
opposition for a deadly purpose, and the Captain was, more- 
over, a stranger. I am sorry to say that with Five Forks 
this latter condition did not carry the quality of sanctity or 
reverence that usually obtains among other nomads. There 
was consequently some little hesitation when the Captain 
turned upon the crowd and asked for some one to act as 
his friend. To everybody's astonishment, and to the indig- 
nation of many, the Fool stepped forward and offered himself 
in that capacity. I do not know whether Captain McFadden 
would have chosen him voluntarily, but he was constrained, 
in the absence of a better man, to accept his services. 

The duel never took place ! The preliminaries were all 
arranged, the spot indicated, the men were present with 
their seconds, there was no interruption from without, there 
was no explanation or apology passed — but the duel did not 
take place. It may be readily imagined that these facts, 



The Fool of Five Forks. 349 

which were all known to Five Forks, threw the whole com- 
munity into a fever of curiosity. The principals, the surgeon, 
and one second left town the next day. Only the Fool 
remained. He resisted all questioning — declaring himself 
held in honour not to divulge — in short, conducted himself 
with consistent but exasperating folly. It was not until six 
months had passed that Colonel Starbottle, the second of 
Calhoun Bungstarter, in a moment of weakness superinduced 
by the social glass, condescended to explain. I should not 
do justice to the parties if I did not give that explanation 
in the Colonel's own words. I may remark, in passing, that 
the characteristic dignity of Colonel Starbottle always be- 
came intensified by stimulants, and that by the same process 
all sense of humour was utterly eliminated. 

"With the understanding that I am addressing myself 
confidentially to men of honour," said the Colonel, elevating 
his chest above the bar-room counter of the Prairie Rose 
Saloon, " I trust that it wdll not be necessary for me to pro- 
tect myself from levity, as I was forced to do in Sacramenj^ 
on the only other occasion when I entered into an explana- 
tion of this delicate affair by — er — er— calling the individual 
to a personal account— er ! I do not believe," added the 
Colonel, slightly waving his glass of liquor in the air with a 
graceful gesture of courteous deprecation — "knowing what I 
do of the present company — that such a course of action is 
required here. Certainly not— Sir— in the home of Mr. 
Hawkins — er — the gentleman who represented Mr. Bung- 
starter, whose conduct, ged. Sir, is worthy of praise, blank 
me!" 

Apparently satisfied with the gravity and respectful atten- 
tion of his listeners. Colonel Starbottle smiled relentingly 
and sweetly, closed his eyes half dreamily, as if to recall his 
wandering thoughts, and began^^ 

*' As the spot selected was nearest the tenement of Mr. 



350 The Fool of Five Forks. 

Hawkins, it was agreed that the parties should meet there. 
They did so promptly at half past six. The morning being 
chilly, Mr. Hawkins extended the hospitalities of his house 
with a bottle of Bourbon whisky — of which all partook but 
myself. The reason for that exception is, I believe, well 
known. It is my invariable custom to take brandy — a wine- 
glassful in a cup of strong coffee, immediately on rising. 
It stimulates the functions, sir, without producing any blank 
derangement of the nerves." 

The barkeeper, to whom, as an expert, the Colonel had 
graciously imparted this information, nodded approvingly, 
and the Colonel, amid a breathless silence, went on — 

"We were about twenty minutes in reaching the spot. 
The ground was measured, the weapons were loaded, when 
Mr. Bungstarter confided to me the information that he 
was unwell and in great pain ! On consultation with Mr. 
Hawkins, it appeared that his principal in a distant part of the 
field was also suffering and in great pain. The symptoms 
were such as a medical man would pronounce ' choleraic* 
I say would have pronounced, for on examination the 
surgeon was also found to be — er — in pain, and I regret to 
say, expressing himself in language unbecoming the occasion. 
His impression was that some powerful drug had been ad- 
ministered. On referring the question to Mr. Hawkins, he 
remembered that the bottle of whisky partaken by them 
contained a medicine which he had been in the habit of 
taking, but which, having failed to act upon him, he had 
concluded to be generally ineffective, and had forgotten. 
His perfect willingness to hold himself personally responsible 
to each of the parties, his genuine concern at the disastrous 
effect of the mistake, mingled with his own alarm at the state 
of his system, which — er — failed to — er — respond to the 
peculiar qualities of the medicine, was most becoming to 
him as a man of honour and a gentleman ! After an hour's 



The Fool of Five Forks, 351 

delay, both principals being completely exhausted, and 
abandoned by the surgeon, who was unreasonably alarmed 
at his own condition, Mr. Hawkins and I agreed to remove 
our men to Markleville. There, after a further consultation 
with Mr. Hawkins, an amicable adjustment of all difficulties, 
honourable to both parties, and governed by profound 
secrecy, was arranged. I believe," added the Colonel, look- 
ing around and setting down his glass, "no gentleman has 
yet expressed himself other than satisfied with the result." 

Perhaps it was the Colonel's manner, but whatever was 
the opinion of Five Forks regarding the intellectual display 
of Mr. Hawkins in this affair, there was very little outspoken 
criticism at the moment. In a few weeks the whole thing 
was forgotten, except as part of the necessary record of 
Hawkins' blunders, which was already a pretty full one. 
Again some later follies conspired to obliterate the past, 
until, a year later, a valuable lead was discovered in the 
" Blazing Star " Tunnel, in the hill where he lived, and a 
large sum was offered him for a portion of his land on the 
hill-top. Accustomed as Five Forks had become to tlie 
exhibition of his folly, it was with astonishment that they 
learned that he resolutely and decidedly refused the offer. 
The reason that he gave was still more astounding. He 
was about to build ! 

To build a house upon property available for mining 
purposes was preposterous ; to build at all with a roof 
already covering him, was an act of extravagance ; to build 
a house of the style he proposed was simply madness ! 

Yet here were facts. The plans were made and the 
lumber for the new building was already on the ground, 
while the shaft of the "Blazing Star" was being sunk 
below. The site was, in reality, a very picturesque one — 
the building itself of a style and quality hitherto unknown 
in Five Forks. The citizens, at first sceptical, during their 



352 The Fool of Five Forks, 

moments of recreation and idleness gathered doubtingly 
about the locaUty. Day by day, in that dimate of rapid 
growths, the building, pleasantly known in the slang of 
Five Forks as " the Idiot Asylum," rose beside the green 
oaks and clustering firs of Hawkins Hill, as if it were part 
of the natural phenomena. At last it was completed. 
Then Mr. Hawkins proceeded to furnish it with an expen- 
siveness and extravagance of outlay quite in keeping with 
his former idiocy. Carpets, sofas, mirrors, and finally a 
piano — the only one known in the county, and brought at 
great expense from Sacramento — kept curiosity at a fever 
heat. More than that, there were articles and ornaments 
which a few married experts declared only fit for women. 
When the furnishing of the house was complete — it had 
occupied two months of the speculative and curious atten- 
tion of the camp — Mr. Hawkins locked the front door, put 
the key in his pocket, and quietly retired to his more 
humble roof, lower on the hill side ! 

I have not deemed it necessary to indicate to the intelli- 
gent reader all of the theories which obtained in Five Forks 
during the erection of the building. Some of them may be 
readily imagined. That "the Hag" had by artful coyness 
and systematic reticence at last completely subjugated the 
Fool, and that the new house was intended for the nuptial 
bower of the (predestined) unhappy pair, was of course the 
prevailing opinion. But when, after a reasonable time had 
elapsed, and the house still remained untenanted, the more 
exasperating conviction forced itself upon the general mind 
that the Fool had been for the third time imposed upon. 
When two months had elapsed and there seemed no 
prospect of a mistress for the new house, I think public 
indignation became so strong that had "the Hag" arrived, 
the marriage would have been publicly prevented. But no 
one appeared that seemed to answer to this idea of an 



The Fool of Five Forks, 353 

available tenant, and all inquiry of Mr. Hawkins as to his 
intention in building a house and not renting it or occupy- 
ing it, failed to elicit any further information. The reasons 
that he gave were felt to be vague, evasive, and unsatis- 
factory. He was in no hurry to move, he said ; when he 
was ready, it surely was not strange that he should like 
to have his house all ready to receive him. He was 
olten seen upon the veranda of a summer evening smoking 
a cigar. It is reported that one night the house was 
observed to be brilliantly lighted from garret to basement ; 
that a neighbour, observing this, crept toward the open 
parlour window, and, looking in, espied the Fool accurately 
dressed in evening costume, lounging upon a sofa in the 
drawing-room, with the easy air of socially entertaining a 
large party. Notwithstanding this, the house was unmis- 
takably vacant that evening, save for the presence of the 
owner, as the witnesses afterward testified. When this 
story was first related, a few practical men suggested the 
theory that Mr. Hawkins was simply drilling himself in the 
elaborate duties of hospitality against a probable event in 
his history. A few ventured the belief that the house 
was haunted. The imaginative editor of the Five Forks 
" Record " evolved from the depths of his professional con- 
sciousness a story that Hawkins' sweetheart had died, and 
that he regularly entertained her spirit in this beautifully- 
furnished mausoleum. The occasional spectacle of Hawkins' 
tall figure pacing the veranda on moonlight nights lent some 
credence to this theory, until an unlooked-for incident 
diverted all speculation into another channel. 

It was about this time that a certain wild, rude valley, 
in the neighbourhood of Five Forks, had become famous 
as a picturesque resort. Travellers had visited it, and 
declared that there were more cubic yards of rough stone 
cliff and a waterfall of greater height, than any they had 

VOL. III. z 



354 ^^^ Fool of Five Forks. 

visited. Correspondents had written it up with extrava- 
gant rhetoric and inordinate poetical quotation. Men and 
women who had never enjoyed a sunset, a tree, or a flower 
— who had never appreciated the graciousness or meaning 
of the yellow sunlight that flecked their homely doorways, 
or the tenderness of a midsummer's night, to whose moon- 
light they bared their shirt-sleeves or their tulle dresses — 
came from thousands of miles away to calculate the height 
of this rock, to observe the depth of this chasm, to remark 
upon the enormous size of this unsightly tree, and to 
believe with ineffable self-complacency that they really 
admired nature. And so it came to pass that, in accord- 
ance with the tastes or weaknesses of the individual, the 
more prominent and salient points of the valley were 
christened, and there was a "Lace Handkerchief Fall," 
and the "Tears of Sympathy Cataract," and one distin- 
guished orator's " Peak," and several " Mounts " of various 
noted people, living or dead ; and an " Exclamation Point," 
and a "Valley of Silent Adoration." And, in course of 
time, empty soda-water bottles were found at the base of 
the cataract, and greasy newspapers and fragments of ham 
sandwiches lay at the dusty roots of giant trees. With this, 
there were frequent irruptions of closely-shaven and tightly- 
cravated men and delicate-faced women in the one long 
street of Five Forks, and a scampering of mules, and an 
occasional procession of dusty brown-linen cavalry. 

A year after "Hawkins' Idiot Asylum" was completed, 
one day there drifted into the valley a riotous cavalcade 
of " school-marms," teachers of the San Francisco public 
schools, out for a holiday. Not severely-spectacled Miner- 
vas and chastely armed and mailed Pallases, but, I fear 
for the security of Five Forks, very human, charming, and 
mischievous young women. At least, so the men thought, 
working in the ditches and tunneUing on the hill-side ; and 



The Fool of Five Forks. 355 

when, in the interests of Science and the mental advance- 
ment of Juvenile Posterity, it was finally settled that they 
should stay in Five Forks two or' three days for the sake 
of visiting the various mines, and particularly the " Blazing 
Star " Tunnel, there was some flutter of masculine anxiety. 
There was a considerable inquiry for ''store clothes," a 
hopeless overhauling of old and disused raiment, and a 
general demand for " boiled shirts " and the barber. 

Meanwhile, with that supreme audacity and impudent 
hardihood of the sex when gregarious, the school-marms 
rode through the town, admiring openly the handsome 
faces and manly figures that looked up from the ditches or 
rose behind the cars of ore at the mouths of tunnels. 
Indeed, it is alleged that Jenny Forester, backed and 
supported by seven other equally shameless young women, 
had openly and publicly waved her handkerchief to the 
florid Hercules of Five Forks — one Tom Flynn, formerly 
of Virginia — leaving that good-natured but not over-bright 
giant pulling his blonde moustaches in bashful amazement. 

It was a pleasant June afternoon that Miss Nelly Arnot, 
Principal of the primary department of one of the public 
schools of San Francisco, having evaded her companions, 
resolved to put into operation a plan which had lately 
sprung up in her courageous and mischief-loving fancy. 
With that wonderful and mysterious instinct of her sex, 
from whom no secrets of the affections are hid and to 
whom all hearts are laid open, she had heard the story of 
Hawkins* folly and the existence of the "Idiot Asylum." 
Alone, on Hawkins' Hill, she had determined to penetrate 
its seclusion. Skirting the underbush at the foot of the 
hill, she managed to keep the heaviest timber between 
herself and the " Blazing Star" Tunnel at its base, as well 
as the cabin of Hawkins, half-way up the ascent, until, by 
a circuitous route, at last she reached, unobserved, the 



35^ The Fool of Five Forks. 

summit. Before her rose, silent, darkened, and motion- 
less, the object of her search. Here her courage failed 
her, with all the characteristic inconsequence of her sex. 
A sudden fear of all the dangers she had safely passed 
— bears, tarantulas, drunken men, and lizards — came upon 
her. For a moment, as she afterwards expressed it, " She 
thought she should die." With this belief, probably, she 
gathered three large stones, which she could hardly lift, for 
the purpose of throwing a great distance ; put two hair- 
pins in her mouth, and carefully readjusted with both 
hands two stray braids of her lovely blue-black mane 
which had fallen in gathering the stones. Then she felt 
in the pockets of her linen duster for her card-case, hand- 
kerchief, pocket-book, and smelling-bottle, and finding 
them intact, suddenly assumed an air of easy, ladylike 
unconcern, went up the steps of the veranda, and 
demurely pulled the front door-bell, which she knew 
would not be answered. After a decent pause, she 
walked around the encompassing veranda, examining the 
closed shutters of the French windows until she found 
one that yielded to her touch. Here she paused again 
to adjust her coquettish hat by the mirror-like surface 
of the long sash window that reflected the full length 
of her pretty figure. And then she opened the window 
and entered the room. 

Although long closed, the house had a smell of newness 
and of fresh paint that was quite unlike the mouldiness of 
the conventional haunted house. The bright carpets, the 
cheerful walls, the glistening oil-cloths were quite incon- 
sistent with the idea of a ghost. With childish curiosity 
she began to explore the silent house, at first timidly — 
opening the doors with a violent push, and then stepping 
back from the threshold to make good a possible retreat ; 
and then more boldly, as she became convinced of her 



The Fool of Five Forks. 357 

security and absolute loneliness. In one of the chambers, 
the largest, there were fresh flowers in a vase — evidently 
gathered that morning; and what seemed still more re- 
markable, the pitchers and ewers were freshly filled with 
water. This obliged Miss Nelly to notice another singular 
fact, namely, that the house was free from dust — the one 
most obtrusive and penetrating visitor of Five Forks. The 
floors and carpets had been recently swept, the chairs and 
furniture carefully wiped and dusted. If the house was 
haunted, it was possessed by a spirit who had none of the 
usual indifference to decay and mould. And yet the beds 
had evidently never been slept in, the very springs of the 
chair in which she sat creaked stiffly at the novelty, the 
closet doors opened with the reluctance of fresh paint and 
varnish, and in spite of the warmth, cleanliness, and cheer- 
fulness of furniture and decoration, there was none of the 
ease of tenancy and occupation. As Miss Nelly afterwards 
confessed, she longed to " tumble things around," and 
when she reached the parlour or drawing-room again, she 
could hardly resist the desire. Particularly was she tempted 
by a closed piano, that stood mutely against the wall She 
thought she would open it just to see who was the maker. 
That done, it would be no harm to try its tone. She did 
so, with one little foot on the soft pedal. But Miss Nelly 
was too good a player, and too enthusiastic a musician, to 
stop at half measures. She tried it again — this time so sin- 
cerely that the whole house seemed to spring into voice. 
Then she stopped and listened. There was no response — 
the empty rooms seemed to have relapsed into their old 
suUness. She stepped out on the veranda — a woodpecker 
recommenced his tapping on an adjacent tree, the rattle of 
a cart in the rocky gulch below the hill came faintly up. 
No one was to be seen far or near. Miss Nelly, reassured, 
returned. She again ran her fingers over the keys — stopped, 



35^ The Fool of Five Forks. 

caught at a melody running in her mind, half played it, and 
then threw away all caution. Before five minutes had 
elapsed she had entirely forgotten herself, and with her 
linen duster thrown aside, her straw hat flung on the piano, 
her white hands bared, and a black loop of her braided hair 
hanging upon her shoulder, was fairly embarked upon a 
flowing sea of musical recollection. 

She had played perhaps half-an-hour, when, having just 
finished an elaborate symphony and resting her hands on 
the keys, she heard very distinctly and unmistakably the 
sound of applause from without. In an instant the fires of 
shame and indignation leaped into her cheeks, and she rose 
from the instrument and ran to the window, only in time to 
catch sight of a dozen figures in blue and red flannel shirts 
vanishing hurriedly through the trees below. 

Miss Nelly's mind was instantly made up. I think I 
have already intimated that under the stimulus of excite- 
ment she was not wanting in courage, and as she quietly 
resumed her gloves, hat, and duster, she was not perhaps 
exactly the young person that it would be entirely safe for 
the timid, embarrassed, or inexperienced of my sex to meet 
alone. She shut down the piano, and having carefully 
reclosed all the windows and doors, and restored the house 
to its former . desolate condition, she stepped from the 
veranda, and proceeded directly to the cabin of the unin- 
tellectual Hawkins, that reared its adobe chimney above 
the umbrage a quarter of a mile below. 

The door opened instantly to her impulsive knock, and 
the Fool of Five Forks stood before her. Miss Nelly had 
never before seen the man designated by this infelicitous 
title, and as he stepped backward in half courtesy and half 
astonishment she was for the moment disconcerted. He 
was tall, finely formed, and dark-bearded. Above cheeks a 
little hollowed by care and ill-health shone a pair of hazel 



The Fool of Five Forks. 359 

eyes, very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad and 
mournful. This was certainly not the kind of man Miss 
Nelly had expected to see, yet after her first embarrassment 
had passed, the very circumstance, oddly enough, added 
to her indignation, and stung her wounded pride still more 
deeply. Nevertheless, the arch hypocrite instantly changed 
her tactics with the swift intuition of her sex. 

" I have come," she said with a dazzling smile, infinitely 
more dangerous than her former dignified severity, "I 
have come to ask your pardon for a great liberty I have 
just taken. I believe the new house above us on the hill 
is yours. I was so much pleased with its exterior that I 
left my friends for a moment below here," she continued 
artfully, with a slight wave of the hand, as if indicating a 
band of fearless Amazons without, and waiting to avenge 
any possible insult offered to one of their number, " and 
ventured to enter it. Finding it unoccupied, as I had been 
told, I am afraid I had the audacity to sit down and amuse 
myself for a few moments at the piano — while waiting for 
my friends." 

Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers. He saw a 
very pretty girl, with frank gray eyes glistening with excite- 
ment, with two red, slightly freckled cheeks, glowing a 
little under his eyes, with a short scarlet upper lip turned 
back, like a rose leaf, over a little line of white teeth, as she 
breathed somewhat hurriedly in her nervous excitement. 
He saw all this calmly, quietly, and, save for the natural 
uneasiness of a shy, reticent man, I fear without a quicken- 
ing of his pulse. 

" I knowed it," he said simply. " I heerd ye as I kem 
up." 

Miss Nelly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his 
coolness, and still more at the suspicion that he was an 
active member of her invisible daquc. 



360 The Fool of Five Forks, 

" Ah," she said, still smiUng, " then I think I heard 
you-" 

'• 1 reckon not," he interrupted gravely. " I didn't stay 
long. I found the boys hanging round the house, and I 
allowed at first I'd go in and kinder warn you, but they 
promised to keep still, and you looked so comfortable and 
wrapped up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to dis- 
turb you, and kem away. I hope," he added earnestly, 
" they didn't let on ez they heerd you. They ain't a bad 
lot — them Blazin' Star boys — though they're a little hard 
at times. But they'd no more hurt ye then they would a 
— a — a cat ! " continued Mr. Hawkins, blushing with a 
faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile. 

" No ! no ! " said Miss Nelly, feeUng suddenly very 
angry with herself, the Fool, and the entire male population 
of Five Forks. " No ! I have behaved foolishly, I suppose 
— and if they had it would have served me right. But I 
only wanted to apologise to you. You'll find everything as 
you left it. Good day ! " 

She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel embar- 
rassed. " I'd have asked ye to sit down," he said, finally, 
" if it hed been a place fit for a lady. I oughter done so, 
enny way. I don't know what kept me from it. But I 
ain't well, Miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager — it's the 
ditches, I think. Miss — and I don't seem to hev my wits 
about me." 

Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy — her quick 
woman's heart was touched. 

"Can I — can anything be done?" she asked, more 
timidly than she had before spoken. 

" No ! — not onless ye remember suthin' about these 
pills." He exhibited a box containing about half-a-dozen. 
" I forget the direction — I don't seem to remember much, 
any way, these times — they're 'Jones' Vegetable Com- 



The Fool of Five Forks. 361 

pound' If ye've ever took 'em ye'll remember whether 
the reg'lar dose is eight. They ain't but six here. But 
perhaps ye never tuk any," he added deprecatingly. 

" No," said Miss Nelly, curtly. She had usually a keen 
sense of the ludicrous, but somehow Mr. Hawkins' eccen- 
tricity only pained her. 

*' Will you let me see you to the foot of the hill ? " he said 
again, after another embarrassing pause. 

Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act would condone 
her trespass in the eyes of the world. She might meet some 
of her invisible admirers — or even her companions — and, 
with all her erratic impulses, she was' nevertheless a woman, 
and did not entirely despise the verdict of conventionaUty. 
She smiled sweetly and assented, and in another moment 
the two were lost in the shadows of the wood. 

Like many other apparently trivial acts in an uneventful 
life, it was decisive. As she expected, she met two or 
three of her late applauders, whom, she fancied, looked 
sheepish and embarrassed ; she met also her companions 
looking for her in some alarm, who really appeared astonished 
at her escort, and, she fancied, a trifle envious of her evident 
success. I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their anxious 
inquiries, did not state entirely the truth, but, without 
actual assertion, led them to believe that she had at a very 
early stage of the proceeding completely subjugated this 
weak-minded giant, and had brought him triumphantly to 
her feet. From telling this story two or three times she 
got finally to believing that she had some foundation for it ; 
then to a vague sort of desire that it would eventually prove 
to be true, and then to an equally vague yearning to hasten 
that consummation. That it would redound to any satis- 
faction of the Fool she did not stop to doubt. That it 
would cure him of his folly she was quite confident. Indeed, 
there are very few of us — men or women — who do not 



362 The Fool of Five Forks. 

believe that even a hopeless love for ourselves is more con- 
ducive to the salvation of the lover than a requited affection 
for another. 

The criticism of Five Forks was, as the reader may 
imagine, swift and conclusive. When it was found out that 
Miss Arnot was not " the Hag " masquerading as a young 
and pretty girl, to the ultimate deception of Five Forks in 
general and the Fool in particular, it was decided at once that 
nothing but the speedy union of the Fool and the "pretty 
school-marm " was consistent with ordinary common sense. 
The singular good fortune of Hawkins was quite in accord- 
ance with the theory of his luck as propounded by the 
camp. That after " the Hag " failed to make her appear- 
ance he should " strike a lead " in his own house, without 
the trouble of " prospectin'," seemed to these casuists as 
a wonderful but inevitable law. To add to these fateful 
probabilities. Miss Arnot fell and sprained her ankle in the 
ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was confined for some weeks 
to the hotel after her companions had departed. During 
this period Hawkins was civilly but grotesquely attentive. 
When, after a reasonable time had elapsed, there still 
appeared to be no immediate prospect of the occupancy 
of the new house, public opinion experienced a singular 
change in regard to its theories of Mr. Hawkins' conduct. 
*' The Hag " was looked upon as a saint-like and long- 
suffering martyr to the weaknesses and inconsistency of the 
Fool. That, after erecting this new house at her request, 
he had suddenly " gone back " on her ; that his celibacy 
was the result of a long habit of weak proposal and subse- 
quent shameless rejection, and that he was now trying his 
hand on the helpless school-marm, was perfectly plain to 
Five Forks. That he should be frustrated in his attempts 
at any cost was equally plain. Miss Nelly suddenly found 
herself invested with a rude chivalry that would have been 



The Fool of Five Forks. 363 

amusing had it not been at times embarrassing ; that would 
have been impertinent but for the ahiiost superstitious 
respect with which it was proffered. Every day somebody 
from Five Forks rode out to inquire the health of the fair 
patient. " Hez Hawkins bin over yer to-day ? " queried 
Tom Flynn, with artful ease and indifference as he leaned 
over Miss Nelly's easy-chair on the veranda. Miss Nelly, 
with a faint pink flush on her cheek, was constrained to 
answer "No." "Well, he sorter sprained his foot agin a 
rock yesterday," continued Flynn, with shameless untruth- 
fulness. " You mus'n't think anything o' that, Miss Arnot. 
He'll be over yer to-morrer, and meantime he told me to 
hand this yer bookay with his regards, and this yer speci- 
men ! " And Mr. Flynn laid down the flowers he had 
picked 671 route against such an emergency, and presented 
respectfully a piece of quartz and gold which he had taken 
that morning from his own sluice-box. " You mus'n't 
mind Hawkins' ways, Miss Nelly," said another sympathis- 
ing miner. " There ain't a better man in camp than that 
theer Cy Hawkins ! — but he don't understand the ways o'' 
the world with wimen. He hasn't mixed as much with 
society as the rest of us," he added, with an elaborate 
Chesterfieldian ease of irianner, " but he means well." 
Meanwhile a few other sympathetic tunnel-men were 
impressing upon Mr. Hawkins the necessity of the greatest 
attention to the invalid. " It won't do, Hawkins," they 
explained, " to let that there gal go back to San Francisco 
and say that when she was sick and alone, the only man 
in Five Forks under whose roof she had rested, and at 
whose table she had sat " — this was considered a natural 
but pardonable exaggeration of rhetoric — " ever threw off 
on her; and it shan't be done. It ain't the square thing to 
Five Forks." And then the Fool would rush away to the 
valley, and be received by Miss Nelly with a certain reserve 



364 The Fool of Five Forks. 

of manner that finally disappeared in a flush of colour, some 
increased vivacity, and a pardonable coquetry. And so the 
days passed ; Miss Nelly grew better in health and more 
troubled in mind, and Mr. Hawkins became more and 
more embarrassed, and Five Forks smiled and rubbed its 
hands, and waited for the approaching denouement. And 
then it came. But not perhaps in the manner that Five 
Forks had imagined. 

It was a lovely afternoon in July that a party of Eastern 
tourists rode into Five Forks. They had just " done " the 
Valley of Big Things, and there being one or two Eastern 
capitalists among the party, it was deemed advisable that 
a proper knowledge of the practical mining resources of 
California should be added to their experience of the 
merely picturesque in Nature. Thus far everything had 
been satisfactory ; the amount of water which passed over 
the Fall was large, owing to a backward season ; some 
snow still remained in the canons near the highest peaks ; 
they had ridden round one of the biggest trees, and 
through the prostrate trunk of another. To say that 
they were delighted is to express feebly the enthusiasm 
of these ladies and gentlemen, drunk with the champagny 
hospitality of their entertainers, the utter novelty of scene, 
and the dry, exhilarating air of the valley. One or two 
had already expressed themselves ready to live and die 
there ; another had written a glowing account to the 
Eastern press, depreciating all other scenery in Europe 
and America ; and under these circumstances it was 
reasonably expected that Five Forks would do its duty, 
and equally impress the stranger after its own fashion. 

Letters to this effect were sent from San Francisco by 
prominent capitalists there, and under the able superin- 
tendence of one of their agents, the visitors were taken 
in hand, shown " what was to be seen," carefully restrained 



The Fool of Five Forks. 365 

from observing what ought not to be visible, and so kept 
in a blissful and enthusiastic condition. And so the 
graveyard of Five Forks, in which but two of the occu- 
pants had died natural deaths, the dreary, ragged cabins 
on the hill-sides, with their sad-eyed, cynical, broken- 
spirited occupants, toiling on, day by day, for a miserable 
pittance and a fare that a self-respecting Eastern mechanic 
would have scornfully rejected, were not a part of the 
Eastern visitors' recollection. But the hoisting works and 
machinery of the " Blazing Star Tunnel Company " was — 
the Blazing Star Tunnel Company, whose "gentlemanly 
Superintendent" had received private information from 
San Francisco to do the "proper thing" for the party. 
Wherefore the valuable heaps of ore in the company's 
works were shown, the oblong bars of gold — ready for 
shipment— were playfully offered to the ladies who could 
lift and carry them away unaided, and even the tunnel 
itself, gloomy, fateful, and peculiar, was shown as part of 
the experience ; and, in the noble language of one corre- 
spondent, "the wealth of Five Forks and the pecuHar 
inducements that it offered to Eastern capitalists" were 
established beyond a doubt. And then occurred a little 
incident which, as an unbiassed spectator, I am free to say 
offered no inducements to anybody whatever, but which, 
for its bearing upon the central figure of this veracious 
chronicle, I cannot pass over. 

It had become apparent to one or two more practical 
and sober-minded in the party that certain portions of 
the " Blazing Star " Tunnel — (owing, perhaps, to the exi- 
gencies of a flattering annual dividend) — were economically 
and imperfectly " shored " and supported, and were conse- 
quently unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided. Nevertheless, 
at a time when champagne corks were popping in dark 
corners, and enthusiastic voices and happy laughter rang 



366 The Fool of Five Fo7'ks. 

through the half-lighted levels and galleries, there came 
a sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights dashed 
swiftly by in the direction of a distant part of the gallery, 
and then there was>a sudden sharp issuing of orders and 
a dull, ominous rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale 
— one woman fainted ! 

Something had happened. What? "Nothing" — the 
speaker is fluent but uneasy — " one of the gentlemen in 
trying to dislodge a ' specimen ' from the wall had knocked 
away a support. There had been a 'cave' — the gentle- 
man was caught and buried below his shoulders. It was 
all right — they'd get him out in a moment — only it required 
great care to keep from extending the 'cave.' Didn't 
know his name — it was that little man — the husband of 
that lively lady with the black eyes. Eh ! Hullo there ! 
Stop her. For God's sake!— not that way ! She'll fall 
from that shaft. She'll be killed ! " 

But the lively lady was already gone. With staring 
black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce the gloom, with 
hands and feet that sought to batter and break down the 
thick darkness, with incoherent cries and supplications, 
following the moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran 
and ran swiftly ! Ran over treacherous foundations, ran 
by yawning gulfs, ran past branching galleries and arches, 
ran wildly, ran despairingly, ran blindly, and at last ran 
into the arms of the Fool of Five Forks. 

In an instant she caught at his hand. " Oh, save him ! " 
she cried; "you belong here — you know this dreadful 
place ; bring me to him. Tell me where to go and what 
to do, I implore you ! Quick, he is dying. Come ! " 

He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a sudden cry, 
dropped the rope and crowbar he was carrying, and reeled 
against the wall. " Annie ! " he gasped, slowly, " is it 
you ? " 



The Fool of Five Forks. 367 

She caught at both his hands, brought her face to his 
with staring eyes, murmured "Good God, Cyrus!" and 
sank upon her knees before him. 

He tried to disengage the hand jjjiat she wrung with 
passionate entreaty. 

" No, no ! Cyrus, you will forgive me — you will forget 
the past ! God has sent you here to-day. You will come 
with me. You will — you must— save him ! " 

" Save who ? " cried Cyrus hoarsely. 

" My husband ! " 

The blow was so direct — so strong and overwhelming — 
that even through her own stronger and more selfish absorp- 
tion she saw it in the face of the man, and pitied him. 

" I thought — you — knew — it ! " she faltered. He did 
not speak, but looked at her with fixed, dumb eyes. And 
then the sound of distant voices and hurrying feet started 
her again into passionate life. She once more caught his 
hand. 

" O Cyrus ! hear me ! If you have loved me through 
all these years, you will not fail me now. You must save 
him ! You can ! You are brave and strong — you always 
were, Cyrus ! You will save him, Cyrus, for my sake — for 
the sake of your love for me ! You will — I know it ! 
God bless you ! " 

She rose as if to follow him, but at a gesture of com- 
mand she stood stilL He picked up the rope and crowbar 
slowly, and in a dazed, blinded way that, in her agony of 
impatience and alarm, seemed protracted to cruel infinity. 
Then he turned, and raising her hand to his lips, he kissed 
it slowly, looked at her again — and the next moment was 
gone. 

He did not return. For at the end of the next half- 
hour, when they laid before her the half-conscious breath- 
ing body of her husband, safe and unharmed but for 



368 The Fool of Five Forks, 

exhaustion and some slight bruises, she learned that the 
worst fears of the workmen had been realised. In releas- 
ing him a second " cave " had taken place. They had barely 
time to snatch away the helpless body of her husband 
before the strong frame of his rescuer, Cyrus Hawkins, was 
struck and smitten down in his place. 

For two hours he lay there, crushed and broken-limbed, 
with a heavy beam lying across his breast, in sight of all, 
conscious and patient. For two hours they had laboured 
around him, wildly, despairingly, hopefully, with the wills of 
gods and the strength of giants, and at the end of that time 
they came to an upright timber, which rested its base upon 
the beam. There was a cry for axes, and one was already 
swinging in the air, when the dying man called to them, 
feebly — 

" Don't cut'that upright ! " 

"Why?" 

" It will bring down the whole gallery with it." 

« How ? " 

" It's one of the foundations of my house." 

The axe fell from the workman's hand, and with a 
blanched face he turned to his fellows. It was too true. 
They were in the uppermost gallery, and the " cave " had 
taken place directly below the new house. After a pause 
the Fool spoke again more feebly. 

" The lady !— quick." 

They brought her — a wretched, fainting creature, with 
pallid face and streaming eyes — and fell back as she bent 
her face above him. 

" It was built for you, Annie, darling," he said in a hur- 
ried whisper, " and has been waiting up there for you and 
me all these long days. It's deeded to you, Annie, and you 
must — live there — with him! He will not mind that I shall 
be always near you — for it stands above — my grave ! " 



The Fool of Five Fo7'ks. 369 

And he was right. In a few minutes later, when he had 
passed away, they did not move him, but sat by his body 
all night with a torch at his feet and head. And the next 
day they walled up the gallery as a vault, but they put no 
mark or any sign thereon, trusting rather to the monument 
that, bright and cheerful, rose above him in the sunlight of 
the hill. For they said : " This is not an evidence of death 
and gloom and sorrow, as are other monuments, but is a 
sign of Life and Light and Hope, wherefore shall all men 
know that he who lies under it — is a Fool ! " 



( 370 ) 



Cf)e 9@an from ©olano. 

He came toward me out of an opera lobby, between the 
acts — a figure as remarkable as anything in the perform- 
ance. His clothes, no two articles of which were of the 
sarne colour, had the appearance of having been purchased 
and put on only an hour or two before — a fact more 
directly established by the clothes-dealer's ticket which still 
adhered to his coat-collar, giving the number,^ size, and 
general dimensions of that garment somewhat obtrusively 
to an uninterested public. His trousers had a straight line 
down each leg, as if he had been born flat but had since 
developed ; and there was another crease down his back, 
like those figures children cut out of folded paper. I may 
add that there was no consciousness of this in his face, 
which was good-natured, and, but for a certain squareness 
in the angle of his lower jaw, utterly uninteresting and 
commonplace. 

" You di'^remember me," he said briefly, as he extended 
his hand, " but I'm from Solano, in Californy. I met you 
there in the spring of '57. I was tendin' sheep, and you 
was burnin' charcoal." 

There was not the slightest trace of any intentional rude- 
ness in the reminder. It was simply a statement of fact, 
and as such to be accepted. 

" What I hailed ye for was only this," he said, after I 
had shaken hands with him. " I saw you a minnit ago 



The Man from Solano. 371 

standin' over in yon box — chirpin' with a lady — a young 
lady, peart and pretty. Might you be telling me her 
name ? " 

I gave him the name of a certain noted belle of a neigh- 
bouring city, who had lately stirred the hearts of the 
metropolis, and who was especially admired by the brilliant 
and fascmating young Dashboard, who stood beside me. 

The Man from Solano mused for a moment, and then 
aid, " Thet's so ! thet's the name ! It's the same gal ! " 

'' You have met her, then ? " I asked, in surprise. 

"Ye-es," he responded slowly; "I met her about fower 
months ago. She'd bin makin' a tour of Californy with 
some friends, and I first saw her aboard the cars this side 
of Reno. She lost her baggage checks, and I found them 
on the floor and gave 'em back to her, and she thanked 
me. I reckon now it would be about the square thing to 
go over thar and sorter recognise her." He stopped a 
moment, and looked at us inquiringly. 

*' My dear sir," struck in the brilliant and fascinating 
young Dashboard, " if your hesitation proceeds from any 
doubt as to the propriety of your attire, I beg you to dis- 
miss it from your mind at once. The tyranny of custom, 
it is true, compels your friend and myself to dress pecu- 
liarly, but I assure you nothing could be finer than the way 
that the olive green of your coat melts in the delicate 
yellow of your cravat, or the pearl gray of your trousers 
blends with the bright blue of your waistcoat, and lends 
additional brilliancy to that massive oroid watch-chain 
which you wear." 

To my surprise, the Man from Solano did not strike him. 
He looked at the ironical Dashboard with grave earnest- 
ness, and then said quietly — 

"Then I reckon you wouldn't mind showin' me in 
thar?" 



372 The Man from Solano. 

Dashboard was, I admit, a little staggered at this. But 
he recovered himself, and, bowing ironically, led the way to 
the box. I followed him and the Man from Solano. 

Now the belle in question happened to be a gentle- 
woman — descended from gentlewomen — and after Dash- 
board's ironical introduction, in which the Man from Solano 
was not spared, she comprehended the situation instantly. 
To Dashboard's surprise she drew a chair to her side, made 
the Man from Solano sit down, quietly turned her back on 
Dashboard, and in full view of the brilliant audience and 
the focus of a hundred lorgnettes, entered into conversation 
with him. 

Here, for the sake of romance, I should like to say he 
became animated, and exhibited some trait of excellence — 
some rare wit or solid sense. But the fact is he was dull 
and stupid to the last degree. He persisted in keeping the 
conversation upon the subject of the lost baggage-checks, 
and every bright attempt of the lady to divert him failed 
signally. At last, to everybody's relief, he rose, and lean- 
ing over her chair, said — 

" I calklate to stop over here some time, miss, and you 
and me bein' sorter strangers here, maybe when there's any 
show like this goin' on you'll let me " 

Miss X. said somewhat hastily that the multiplicity of 
her engagements and the brief limit of her stay in New 
York she feared would, &c., &c. The two other ladies had 
their handkerchiefs over their mouths, and were staring 
intently on the stage, when the Man from Solano con- 
tinued — 

" Then, maybe, miss, whenever there is a show goin' on 
that you'll attend, you'll just drop me word to Earle's 
Hotel, to this yer address," and he pulled from his pocket 
a dozen well-worn letters, and taking the buff envelope 
from one, handed it to her with something like a bow. 



The Man from Solano. 373 

" Certainly," broke in the facetious Dashboard ; " Miss 
X. goes to the Charity Ball to-morrow night. The tickets 
are but a trifle to an opulent Californian, and a man of 
your evident means, and the object a worthy one. You 
will, no doubt, easily secure an invitation." 

Miss X. raised her handsome eyes for a moment to 
Dashboard. " By all means," she said, turning to the Man 
from Solano; "and as Mr. Dashboard is one of the 
managers, and you are a stranger, he will, of course, send 
you a complimentary ticket. I have known Mr. Dash- 
board long enough to know that he is invariably courteous 
to strangers and a gentleman." She settled herself in her 
chair again and fixed her eyes upon the stage. 

The Man from Solano thanked the Man of New York, 
and then, after shaking hands with everybody in the box, 
turned to go. When he had reached the door he looked 
back to Miss X., and said — 

" It was one of the queerest things in the world, miss, 
that my findin' them checks " 

But the curtain had just then risen on the garden 
scene in " Faust," and Miss X. was absorbed. The Man 
from Solano carefully shut the box door and retired. I 
followed him. 

He was silent until he reached the lobby, and then he 
said, as if renewing a previous conversation, "She is a 
mighty peart gal — that's so. She's just my kind, and 
will make a stavin' good wife." 

I thought I saw danger ahead for the Man from Solano, 
so I hastened to tell him that she was beset by atten- 
tions, that she could have her pick and choice of the 
best of society, and finally, that she was, most probably, 
engaged to Dashboard. 

"That's so," he said quietly, without the slightest trace 
of feeling. " It would be mighty queer if she wasn't. 



374 The Man from Solano. 

But I reckon I'll steer down to the ho-tel. I don't care 
much for this yellin'." (He was alluding to a cadenza of 
that famous cantatrice, Signora Batti Batti.) " What's the 
time? " 

He pulled out his watch. It was such a glaring chain, 
so obviously bogus, that my eyes were fascinated by it. 
'* You're looking at that watch," he said ; " it's purty to 
look at, but she don't go worth a cent. And yet her 
price was $125, gold. I gobbled her up in Chatham 
Street day before yesterday, where they were selling 'em 
very cheap at auction." 

"You have been outrageously swindled," I said indig- 
nantly. "Watch and chain are not worth twenty dollars." 

" Are they worth fifteen ? " he asked gravely. 

"Possibly." 

" Then I reckon it's a fair trade. Ye see, I told 'em I 
was a Californian from Solano, and hadn't anything about 
me of greenbacks. I had three slugs with me. Ye 
remember them slugs ? " (I did ; the " slug " was a " token '* 
issued in the early days — a hexagonal piece of gold a 
little over twice the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece — 
worth and accepted for fifty dollars.) 

"Well, I handed them that, and they handed me the 
watch. You see them slugs I had made myself outer brass 
filings and iron pyrites, and used to slap 'em down on the 
boys for a bluff in a game of draw poker. You see, not 
being reg'lar gov'ment money, it wasn't counterfeiting. I 
reckon they cost me, counting time and anxiety, about 
fifteen dollars. So, if this yer watch is worth that, it's 
about a square game, ain't it ? " 

I began to understand the Man from Solano, and said 
it was. He returned his watch to his pocket, toyed 
playfully with the chain, and remarked, " Kinder makes a 
man look fash'nable and wealthy, don't it ? " 



The Man from Solano. 375 

I agreed with him. "But what do you intend to do 
here ? " I asked. 

" Well, I've got a cash capital of nigh on seven hundred 
dollars. I guess until I get into reg'lar business I'll 
skirmish round Wall Street, and sorter lay low." I was 
about to give him a few words of warning, but I remem- 
bered his watch, and desisted. We shook hands and 
parted. 

A few days after I met him on Broadway. He was 
attired in another new suit, but I think I saw a slight 
improvement in his general appearance. Only five dis- 
tinct colours were visible in his attire. But this, I had 
reason to believe afterwards, was accidental. 

I asked him if he had been to the ball. He said he 
had. " That gal, and a mighty peart gal she was too, 
was there, but she sorter fought shy of me. I got this 
new suit to go in, but those waiters sorter run me into a 
private box, and I didn't get much chance to continner 
our talk about them checks. But that young feller. Dash- 
board, was mighty perlite. He brought lots of fellers and 
young women round to the box to see me, and he made 
up a party that night to take me round Wall Street and in 
them Stock Boards. And the next day he called for me, 
and took me, and I invested about five hundred dollars in 
them stocks — maybe more. You see, we sorter swopped 
stocks. You know I had ten shares in the Peacock 
Copper Mine, that you was once secretary of." 

" But those shares are not worth a cent. The whole 
thing exploded ten years ago," 

" That's so, maybe ; you say so. But then I didn't 
know anything more about Communipaw Central, or the 
Naphtha Gaslight Company, and so I thought it was a 
square game. Only I realised on the stocks I bought, 
and I kem up outer Wall Street about four hundred dollars 



3/6 The Man from Solatia. 

better. You see it was a sorter risk, after all, for them 
Peacock stocks might come up ! " 

I looked into his face : it was immeasurably serene and 
commonplace. I began to be a little afraid of the man, 
or, rather, of my want of judgment of the man ; and after 
a few words we shook hands and parted. 

It was some months before I again saw the Man from 
Solano. When I did, I found that he had actually become 
a member of the Stock Board, and had a little office on 
Broad Street, where he transacted a fair business. My 
remembrance going back to the first night I met him, I 
inquired if he had renewed his acquaintance with Miss 
X. 

"I heerd that she was in Newport this summer, and 
I ran down there fur a week." 

" And you talked with her about the baggage-checks ? " 

" No," he said seriously ; " she gave me a commission 
to buy some stocks for her. You see, I guess them fash'- 
nable fellers sorter got to runnin' her about me, and so 
she put our acquaintance on a square business footing. 
I tell you, she^s a right peart gal. Did ye hear of the 
accident that happened to her ? " 

I had not. 

"Well, you see, she was out yachting, and I managed 
through one of those fellers to get an invite too. The 
whole thing was got up by a man that they say is going 
to marry her. Well, one afternoon the boom swings 
round in a little squall and knocks her overboard. There 
was an awful excitement, — you've heard about it, maybe ? " 

*'No!" But I saw it all with a romancer's instinct in 
a flash of poetry ! This poor fellow, debarred through 
uncouthness from expressing his affection for her, had at 
last found his fitting opportunity. He had 

" Thar was an awful row," he went on. " I ran out on 



TJie Man from Solano. 377 

the taffrail, and there a dozen yards away was that purty 
creature, that peart gal, and — I " 

" You jumped for her," I said hastily. 

" No ! " he said gravely. " I let the other man do the 
jumping. I sorter looked on." 

I stared at him in astonishment. 

" No," he went on seriously. " He was the man who 
jumped — that was just then his ' put ' — his Hne of business. 
You see if I had waltzed over the side of that ship, and 
cavoorted in, and flummuxed round and finally flopped to 
the bottom, that other man would have jumped nateral-like 
and saved her ; and ez he was going to marry her any way, 
I don't exactly see where Vd hev been represented in the 
transaction. But don't you see, ef, after he'd jumped and 
hadn't got her, he'd gone down himself, I'd hev had the 
next best chance, and the advantage of heving him outer 
the way. You see, you don't understand me — I don't think 
you did in Californy." 

" Then he did save her ? " 

" Of course. Don't you see she was all right: If he'd 
missed her, I'd have chipped in. Thar warn't no sense in 
my doing his duty onless he failed." 

Somehow the story got out. The Man from Solano as a 
butt became more popular than ever, and of course received 
invitations to burlesque receptions, and naturally met a 
great many people whom otherwise he would not have seen. 
It was observed also that his seven hun'dred dollars were 
steadily growing, and that he seemed to be getting on in 
his business. Certain Californian stocks which I had seen 
quietly interred in the old days in the tombs of their fathers 
were magically revived ; and I remember, as one who has 
seen a ghost, to have been shocked as I looked over the 
quotations one morning to have seen the ghastly face of the 
" Dead Beach Mining Co.," rouged and plastered, looking 



378 The Man from Solano. 

out from the columns of the morning paper. At last a few 
people began to respect, or suspect, the Man from Solano. 
At last suspicion culminated with this incident : — 

He had long expressed a wish to belong to a certain 
" fash'n'ble " club, and with a view of burlesque he was in- 
vited to visit the club, where a series of ridiculous entertain- 
ments were given him, winding up with a card party. As I 
passed the steps of the club-house early next morning, I 
overheard two or three members talking excitedl)', — 

" He cleaned everybody out." " Why, he must have 
raked in nigh on $40,000." 

"Who?" I asked. 

"The Man from Solano." 

As I turned away, one of the gentlemen, a victim, noted 
for his sporting propensities, followed me, and laying his 
hand on my shoulder, asked^ 

"Tell me fairly now. What business did your friend 
follow in California ? " 

" He was a shepherd." 

"A what?" 

" A shepherd. Tended his flocks on the honey-scented 
hills of Solano." 

"Well, all I can say is, d — n your Californian pastorals I" 



( 379 ) 



a (06ost Of tfte ©lerratf. 

It was a vast silence of pines, redolent with balsamic breath, 
and muffled with the dry dust of dead bark and matted 
mosses. Lying on our backs, we looked upward through a 
hundred feet of clear, unbroken interval to the first lateral 
branches that formed -the flat canopy above us. Here and 
there the fierce sun, from whose active persecution we had 
just escaped, searched for us through the woods, but its 
keen blade was dulled and turned aside by intercostal 
boughs, and its brightness dissipated in nebulous mists 
throughout the roofing of the dim, brown aisles around us. 
We were in another atmosphere, under another sky ; indeed, 
in another world than the dazzling one we had just quitted. 
The grave silence seemed so much a part of the grateful 
coolness, that we hesitated to speak, and for some moments 
lay quietly outstretched on the pine tassels where we had first 
thrown ourselves. Finally, a voice broke the silence — 
" Ask the old Major ; he knows all about it ! " 
The person here alluded to under that military title was 
myself. I hardly need explain to any Californian that it by 
no means followed that I was a " Major," or that I was 
"old," or that I knew anything about "it," or indeed what 
"it" referred to. The whole remark was merely one of 
the usual conventional feelers to conversation, — a kind of 
social preamble, quite common to our slangy camp inter- 
course. Nevertheless, as I was always known as the Major, 



380 A Ghost of the Sierras, 

perhaps for no better reason than that the speaker, an old 
journahst, was always called Doctor, I recognised the fact 
so far as to kick aside an intervening saddle, so that I could 
see the speaker's face on a level with my own, and said 
nothing. 

" About ghosts ! " said the Doctor, after a pause, which 
nobody broke or was expected to break. ''Ghosts, sir! 
That's what we want to know. What are we doing here in 
this blank old mausoleum of Calaveras County, if it isn't to 
find out something about 'em, eh ? " 

Nobody replied. 

" Thar's that haunted house at Cave City. Can't be more 
than a mile or two away, anyhow. Used to be just off the 
trail." 

A dead silence. 

The Doctor (addressing space generally) : " Yes, sir ; it 
was a mighty queer story." 

Still the same reposeful indifference. We all knew the 
Doctor's skill as a raconteur ; we all knew that a story was 
coming, and we all knew that any interruption would be 
fatal. Time and time again, in our prospecting experience, 
had a word of polite encouragement, a rash expression of 
interest, even a too eager attitude of silent expectancy, 
brought the Doctor to a sudden change of subject. Time 
and time again have we seen the unwary stranger stand 
amazed and bewildered between our own indifference and 
the sudden termination of a promising anecdote, through 
his own unlucky interference. So we said nothing. " The 
Judge " — another instance of arbitrary nomenclature — pre- 
tended to sleep. Jack began to twist a cigarrito. Thorn- 
ton bit off the ends of pine needles reflectively. 

" Yes, sir," continued the Doctor, coolly resting the back 
of his head on the palms of his hands, " it was rather 
curious. All except the murder. Thafs what gets me, 



A Ghost of the Sierras. 381 

for the murder had no new points, no fancy touches, no 
sentiment, no mystery. Was just one of the old style, 
" sub-head " paragraphs. Old-fashioned miner scrubs along 
on hardtack and beans, and saves up a little money to go 
home and see relations. Old-fashioned assassin sharpens 
up knife, old style ; loads old flint-lock, brass-mounted 
pistols ; walks in on old-fashioned miner one dark night, 
sends him home to his relations away back to several 
generations, and walks off with the swag. No mystery 
there ; nothing to clear up ; subsequent revelations only 
impertinence. Nothing for any ghost to do — who meant 
business. More than that, over forty murders, same old 
kind, committed every year in Calaveras, and no spiritual 
post obits coming due every anniversary; no assessments 
made on the peace and quiet of the surviving community. 
I tell you what, boys, I've always been inclined to throw 
off on the Cave City ghost for that alone. It's a bad pre- 
cedent,, sir. If that kind o' thing is going to obtain in the 
foot-hills, we'll have the trails full of chaps formerly knocked 
over by Mexicans and road agents ; every little camp and 
grocery will have stock enough on hand to go into business, 
and Where's there any security for surviving life and pro- 
perty, eh? What's your opinion. Judge, as a fair-minded 
legislator ? " 

Of course there was no response. Yet it was part of the 
Doctor's system of aggravation to become discursive at 
these moments, in the hope of interruption, and he con- 
tinued for some moments to dwell on the terrible possibility 
of a state of affairs in which a gentleman could no longer 
settle a dispute with an enemy without being subjected to 
succeeding spiritual embarrassment. But all this digression 
fell upon apparently inattentive ears. 

" Well, sir, after the murder, the cabin stood for a long 
time deserted and tenantless. Popular opinion was against 



382 A Ghost of the Sierras. 

it. One day a ragged prospector, savage with hard labour 
and harder luck, came to the camp, looking for a place to 
live and a chance to prospect. After the boys had taken 
his measure, they concluded that he'd already tackled so 
much in the way of difficulties that a ghost more or less 
wouldn't be of much account. So they sent him to the 
haunted cabin. He had a big yellow dog with him, about 
as ugly and as savage as himself ; and the boys sort o' con- 
gratulated themselves, from a practical view point, that 
while they were giving the old ruffian a shelter, they were 
helping in the cause of Christianity against ghosts and gob- 
lins. They had little faith in the old man, but went their 
whole pile on that dog. That's where they were mistaken. 

" The house stood almost three hundred feet from the 
nearest cave, and on dark nights, being in a hollow, was as 
lonely as if it had been on the top of Shasta. If you ever 
saw the spot when there was just moon enough to bring 
out the little surrounding clumps of chaparral until they 
looked like crouching figures, and make the bits of broken 
quartz glisten like skulls, you'd begin to understand how 
big a contract that man and that yellow dog undertook. 

" They went into possession that afternoon, and old Hard 
Times set out to cook his supper. When it was over he 
sat down by the embers and lit his pipe, the yellow dog 
lying at his feet. Suddenly ' Rap ! rap ! ' comes from the 
door. ' Come in,' says the man gruffly. ' Rap ! ' again. 
* Come in and be d — d to you/ says the man, who had no 
idea of getting up to open the door. But no one responded, 
and the next moment smash goes the only sound pane in 
the only window. Seeing this, old Hard Times gets up, 
with the devil in his eye, and a revolver in his hand, fol- 
lowed by the yellow dog, with every teeth showing, and 
swings open the door. No one there ! But as the man 
opened the door, that yellow dog, that had been so chipper 



A Ghost of the Sierras, 383 

before, suddenly begins to crouch and step backward, step 
by step, trembling and shivering, and at last crouches 
down in the chimney, without even so much as looking at 
his master. The man slams the door shut again, but there 
comes another smash. This time it seems to come from 
inside the cabin, and it isn't until the man looks around 
and sees everything quiet that he gets up, without speaking, 
and makes a dash for the door, and tears round outside the 
cabin like mad, but finds nothing but silence and darkness. 
Then he comes back swearing and calls the dog. But that 
great yellow dog that the boys would have staked all their 
money on is crouching under the bunk, and has to be 
dragged out like a coon from a hollow tree, and lies there, 
his eyes starting from their sockets ; every limb and muscle 
quivering with fear, and his very hair drawn up in bristling 
ridges. The man calls him to the door. He drags him- 
self a few steps, stops, sniffs, and refuses to go farther. 
The man calls him again, with an oath and a threat. Then, 
what does that yellow dog do ? He crawls edgewise to- 
wards the door, crouching himself against the bunk, till he's 
flatter than a knife blade ; then, half-way, he stops. Then 
that d — d yellow dog begins to walk gingerly — lifting each 
foot up in the air, one after the other, still trembling in 
every limb. Then he stops again. Then he crouches. 
Then he gives one Httle shuddering leap— not straight for- 
ward, but up, — clearing the floor about six inches, as 
if" 

" Over something," interrupted the Judge hastily, Uft- 
ing himself on his elbow. 

The Doctor stopped instantly. "Juan," he said coolly 
to one of the Mexican packers, "quit foolin' with that 
riata. You'll have that stake out and that mule loose in 
another minute. Come over this way ! " 

The Mexican turned a scared, white face to the Doctor, 



384 A Ghost of the Sierras. 

muttering something, and let go the deerskin hide. We 
all up-raised our voices with one accord, the Judge most 
penitently and apologetically, and implored the Doctor to 
go on. " I'll shoot the first man who interrupts you again," 
added Thornton persuasively. 

But the Doctor, with his hands languidly under his head, 
had lost his interest. " Well, the dog ran off to the hills, 
and neither the threats nor cajoleries of his master could 
ever make him enter the cabin again. The next day the 
man left the camp. What time is it ? Getting on to sun- 
down, ain't it? Keep off my leg, will you, you d — d 
Greaser, and stop stumbling round there ! Lie down." 

But we knew that the Doctor had not completely finished 
his story, and we waited patiently for the conclusion. 
Meanwhile the old, gray silence of the woods again asserted 
itself, but shadows were now beginning to gather in the 
heavy beams of the roof above, and the dim aisles seemed 
to be narrowing and closing in around us. Presently the 
Doctor recommenced lazily, as if no interruption had 
occurred. 

" As I said before, I never put much faith in that story, 
and shouldn't have told it, but for a rather curious experi- 
ence of my own. It was in the spring of '62, and I was 
one of a party of four, coming up from O'Neill's, when we 
had been snowed up. It was awful weather ; the snow had 
changed to sleet and rain after we crossed the divide, and 
the water was out everywhere ; every ditch was a creek, 
every creek a river. We had lost two horses on the North 
Fork, we were dead beat, off the trail, and sloshing round, 
with night coming on, and the level hail like shot in our 
faces. Things were looking bleak and scary when, riding 
a little ahead of the party, I saw a light twinkling in a 
hollow beyond. My horse was still fresh, and calling out 
to the boys to follow me and bear for the light, I struck 



A Ghost of the Sierras. 385 

out for it. In another moment I was before a little cabin 
that half burrowed in the black chaparral ; I dismounted 
and rapped at the door. There was no response. I then 
tried to force the door, but it was fastened securely from 
within. I was all the more surprised when one of the boys, 
who had overtaken me, told me that he had just seer^ 
through a window a man reading by the fire. Indignant 
at this inhospitality, we both made a resolute onset against 
the door, at the same time raising our angry voices to a 
yell. Suddenly there was a quick response, the hurried 
withdrawing of a bolt, and the door opened. 

" The occupant was a short, thick-set man, with a pale, 
careworn face, whose prevailing expression was one of 
gentle good-humour and patient suffering. When we 
entered, he asked us hastily why we had not ' sung out ' 
before. 

" ' But we knocked I ' I said impatiently, * and almost 
drove your door in.' 

" ' That's nothing,' he said patiently. * I'm used to 
t/iat: 

" I looked again at the man's patient, fateful face, and 
then around the cabin. In an instant the whole situa- 
tion flashed before me. ' Are we not near Cave City ? ' I 
asked. 

" ' Yes,' he replied, ' it's just below. You must have 
passed it in the storm.' 

"'I see.' I again looked around the cabin. 'Isn't 
this what they call the haunted house ? ' 

"He looked at me curiously. ' It is,' he said simply. 

*' You can imagine my delight ! Here was an oppor- 
tunity to test the whole story, to work down to the bed 
rock, and see how it would pan out ! We were too many 
and too well armed to fear tricks or dangers from outsiders. 
If — as one theory had bee»n held — the disturbance was kept 

VOL. III. 2 B 



386 A Ghost of the Sierras, 

up by a band of concealed marauders or road agents, whose 
purpose was to preserve their haunts from intrusion, we 
were quite able to pay them back in kind for any assault 
I need not say that the boys were delighted with this pros- 
pect when the fact was revealed to them. The only one 
doubtful and apathetic spirit there was our host, who quietly 
resumed his seat and his book, with his old expression of 
patient martyrdom. It would have been easy for me to 
have drawn him out, but I felt that I did not want to 
corroborate anybody else's experience ; only to record my 
own. And I thought it better to keep the boys from any 
predisposing terrors. 

" We ate our supper, and then sat, patiently and expec- 
tant, around the fire. An hour slipped away, but no dis- 
turbance ; another hour passed as monotonously. Our host 
read his book ; only the dash of hail against the roof broke 
the silence. But " 

The Doctor stopped. Since the last interruption, I 
noticed he had changed the easy slangy style of his story 
to a more perfect, artistic, and even studied manner. He 
dropped now suddenly into his old colloquial speech, and 
quietly said, " If you don't quit stumbling over those riatas 
Juan, I'll hobble you. Come here, there ; lie down, will 
you ? " 

We all turned fiercely on the cause of this second 
dangerous interruption, but a sight of the poor fellow's 
pale and frightened face withheld our vindictive tongues. 
And the Doctor, happily, of his own accord, went on : — 

*' But I had forgotten that it was no easy matter to keep 
these high-spirited boys, bent on a row, in decent subjec- 
tion ; and after the third hour passed without a supernatural 
exhibition, I observed, from certain winks and whispers, 
that they were determined to get up indications of their 
own. In a few moments violent rappings were heard from 



A Ghost of the Sierras, 387 

all parts of the cabin ; large stones (adroitly thrown up the 
chimney) fell with a heavy thud on the roof. Strange groans 
and ominous yells seemed to come from the outside (where 
the interstices between the logs were wide enough). Yet, 
through all this uproar, our host sat still and patient, with 
no sign of indignation or reproach upon his good-humoured 
but haggard features. Before long it became evident that 
this exhibition was exclusively for his benefit. Under the 
thin disguise of asking him to assist them in discovering 
the disturbers outside the cabin, those inside took advantage 
of his absence to turn the cabin topsy-turvy. 

"'You see what the spirits have done, old man,' said 
the arch leader of this mischief. ' They've upset that 
there flour barrel while we wasn't looking, and then kicked 
over the water-jug and spilled all the water ! ' 

"The patient man lifted his head and looked at the 
flour-strewn walls. Then he glanced down at the floor, but 
drew back with a slight tremor. 

" * It ain't water ! ' he said quietly. 

" ' What is it then ? ' 

" * It's BLOOD ! Look ! ' 

"The nearest man gave a sudden start and sank back 
white as a sheet. 

" For there, gentlemen, on the floor, just before the door, 
where the old man had seen the dog hesitate and lift his 
feet, there ! there ! — gentlemen — upon my honour, slowly 
widened and broadened a dark red pool of human blood ! 
Stop him ! Quick ! Stop him, I say ! " 

There was a blinding flash that lit up the dark woods, 
and a sharp report ! When we reached the Doctor's side 
he was holding the smoking pistol, just discharged, in one 
hand, while with the other he was pointing to the rapidly 
disappearing figure of Juan, our Mexican vaquero ! 

" Missed him ! by G— d ! " said the Doctor. " But did 



388 A Ghost of the Sierras, 

you hear him ? Did you see his livid face as he rose up 
at the name of blood ? Did you see his guilty conscience 
in his face. Eh ? Why don't you speak ? What are you 
staring at ? " 

"Was it the murdered man's ghost, Doctor?" we all 
panted in one quick breath. 

" Ghost be d — d ! No ! But in that Mexican vaquero 
— that cursed Juan Ramirez ! — I saw and shot at his 
murderer! " 



EASTERN SKETCHES. 



( 391 ) 



UitW from a (German g^pion. 

Outside of my window, two narrow perpendicular mirrors, 
parallel with the casement, project in the street, yet with a 
certain unobtrusiveness of angle that enables them to reflect 
the people who pass without any reciprocal disclosure of 
their own. The men and women, hurrying by, not only do 
not know they are observed, but, what is worse, do not 
even see their own reflection in this hypocritical plane, and 
are consequently unable through its aid to correct any 
carelessness of garb, gait, or demeanour. At first this 
seems to be taking an unfair advantage of the human animal, 
who invariably assumes an attitude when he is conscious 
of being under human focus ; but I observe that my 
neighbours' windows, right and left, have a similar appa- 
ratus, that this custom is evidently a local one, and the 
locality is German. Being an American stranger, I am 
quite willing to leave the morality of the transaction with 
the locality and adapt myself to the custom. Indeed I had 
thought of offering it, figuratively, as an excuse for any 
unfairness of observation I might make in these pages ; 
but my German mirrors reflect without prejudice, selection, 
or comment, and the American eye, I fear, is but mortal, 
and, like all mortal eyes, figuratively, as well as in that literal 
fact noted by an eminent scientific authority, infinitely 
inferior to the work of the best German opticians. 

And this leads me to my first observation, namely, that, 



392 Views from a German Spion. 

a majority of those who pass my mirror have weak eyes, 
and have already invoked the aid of the optician. Why 
are these people, physically in all else so much stronger 
than my countrymen, deficient in eyesight? Or, to omit 
the passing testimony of my Spion, and take my own 
personal experience, why does my young friend Max — 
brightest of all schoolboys, who already wears the cap 
that denotes the highest class — why does he shock me by 
suddenly drawing forth a pair of spectacles, that upon his 
fresh, rosy face would be an obvious mocking imitation of 
the Ilerr Papa — if German children could ever, by any 
possibility, be irreverent ? Or why does the Fraulein Marie, 
his sister, pink as Aurora, round as Hebe, suddenly veil 
her blue eyes with a golden lorgnette in the midst of our 
polyglot conversation ? Is it to evade the direct, admiring 
glance of the impulsive American ? Dare I say no ? Dare 
I say that that frank, clear, honest, earnest return of the 
eye, which has, on the Continent, most unfairly brought 
my fair countrywomen under criticism, is quite as common 
to her more carefully guarded, tradition-hedged German 
sisters ? No, it is not that ! Is it anything in these 
emerald and opal-tinted skies, which seem so unreal to the 
American eye, and for the first time explain what seemed 
the unreality of German art ? — in these mysterious yet 
restful Rhine fogs, which prolong the twilight and hang 
the curtain of romance even over mid-day? Surely not. 
Is it not rather, O Herr Professor, profound in analogy 
and philosophy — is it not rather this abominable black- 
letter — this elsewhere-discarded, uncouth, slowly decaying 
text known as the German Alphabet, that plucks out the 
bright eyes of youth and bristles the gateways of your 
language with a chevaux de /rise of splintered rubbish ? 
Why must I hesitate whether it is an accident of the 
printer's press or the poor quality of the paper that makes 



Views from a German Spion. 393 

this letter a "y^" or a "/"? Why must I halt in an 
emotion or a thought because "j" and *'/" are so nearly 
alike ? Is it not enough that I, an impulsive American, 
accustomed to do a thing first and reflect upon it afterwards, 
must grope my way through a blind alley of substantives 
and adjectives, only to find the verb of action in an obscure 
corner, without ruining my eyesight in the groping ? 

But I dismiss these abstract reflections for a fresh and 
active resentment. This is the fifth or sixth dog that has 
passed my Spio?i, harnessed to a small barrow-like cart and 
tugging painfully at a burden so ludicrously dispropor- 
tionate to his size, that it would seem a burlesque but 
for the poor dog's sad sincerity. Perhaps it is because I 
have the barbarian's fondness for dogs, and for their law- 
less, gentle, loving uselessness, that I rebel against this 
unnatural servitude. It seems as monstrous as if a child 
were put between the shafts and made to carry burdens ; 
and I have come to regard those men and women who in 
the weakest perfunctory way affect to aid the poor brute, by 
laying idle hands on the barrow behind, as I would unnatural 
parents. Pegasus harnessed to the Thracian herdman's 
plough was no more of a desecration. I fancy the poor dog 
seems to feel the monstrosity of the performance, and, in 
sheer shame for his master, forgivingly tries to assume it is 
play ; and I have seen a little " colley " running along, 
barking and endeavouring to leap and gambol in the shafts, 
before a load that any one out of this locality would have 
thought the direst cruelty. Nor do the older or more 
powerful dogs seem to become accustomed to it. When 
his cruel taskmaster halts with his wares, instantly the dog, 
either by sitting down in his harness, or crawHng over the 
shafts, or by some unmistakable dog-like trick, utterly 
scatters any such delusion of even the habit of servitude. 
The few of his race who do not work in this ducal city seem 



394 Views from a German Spion. 

to have lost their democratic canine sympathies, and look 
upon him with something of that indifferent calm with which 
yonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. 
He loses even the characteristics of species — the common 
cur and mastiff look alike in harness — the burden levels all 
distinctions. I have said that he was generally sincere in 
his efforts. I recall but one instance to the contrary. I 
remember a young colley who first attracted my attention 
by his persistent barking. Whether he did this, as the 
ploughboy whistled, ^'for want of thought," or whether it 
was a running protest against his occupation, I could not 
determine, until one day I noticed that in barking he slightly 
threw up his neck and shoulders, and that the two-wheeled 
barrow-like vehicle behind him, having its weight evenly 
poised on the wheels by the trucks in the hands of its driver, 
enabled him by this movement to cunningly throw the 
centre of gravity and the greater weight on the man — a fact 
which that less sagacious brute never discerned. Perhaps 
I am using a strong expression regarding his driver \ it may 
be that the purely animal wants of the dog, in the way of 
food, care, and shelter, are more bountifully supplied in 
servitude than in freedom ; becoming a valuable and useful 
property, he may be cared for and protected as such — an 
odd recollection that this argument had been used forcibly 
in regard to human slavery in my own country strikes me 
here — but his picturesqueness and poetry are gone, and I 
cannot help thinking that the people who have lost this 
gentle, sympathetic, characteristic figure from their domestic 
life and surroundmgs have not acquired an equal gain 
through his harsh labours. 

To the American eye there is throughout the length and 
breadth of this foreign city no more notable and striking 
object than the average German house servant ! It is not 
that she has passed my Spion a dozen times within the last 



Views from a Ge7^7itan Spion. 395 

hour — for here she is messenger, porter, and cominissionnaire 
as well as housemaid and cook — but that she is always a 
phenomenon to the American stranger, accustomed to be 
abused in his own country by his foreign Irish handmaiden. 
Her presence is as refreshing and grateful as the morning 
light, and as inevitable and regular. When I add that with 
the novelty of being well served is combined the satisfaction 
of knowing that you- have in your household an intelligent 
being, who reads and writes with fluency, and yet does not 
abstract your books nor criticise your literary composition ; 
who is cleanly clad, and neat in her person, without the 
suspicion of having borrowed her mistress's dresses ; who 
may be good-looking without the least imputation of 
coquetry or addition to her followers ; who is obedient 
without servility, polite without flattery, willing and replete 
with supererogatory performance without the expectation of 
immediate pecuniary return — what wonder that the American 
householder translated into German life feels himself in a 
new Eden of domestic possibilities unrealised in any other 
country, and begins to believe in a present and future of 
domestic happiness ! What wonder that the American 
bachelor, living in German lodgings, feels half the terrors of 
the conjugal future removed, and rushes madly into love — - 
and housekeeping ! What wonder that I, a long-suflering 
and patient master, who have been served by the reticent 
but too imitative Chinaman ; who have been " Massa " to 
the childlike but untruthful negro ; who have been the 
recipient of the brotherly but uncertain ministrations of the 
South Sea Islander, and have been proudly disregarded by 
the American Aborigine, only in due time to meet the fate 
of my countrymen at the hands of Bridget the Celt — what 
wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing the praises 
of my German handmaid ! Honour to thee, Lenchen, 
wherever thou goest ! Heaven bless thee in thy walks 



2,g6 Views from a German Spton. 

abroad, whether with that tightly booted cavalryman in thy 
Sunday gown and best, or in blue polka-dotted apron and 
bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mine errands — errands 
which Bridget O'Flaherty would scorn to undertake, or 
undertaking would hopelessly blunder in ! Heaven bless 
thee, child, in thy early risings and in thy later sittings, at 
thy festive board, overflowing with Essig and Fett, in the 
mysteries of thy Kuchen, in the fulness of thy Bier, and in 
thy nightly suffocations beneath mountainous and multitu- 
dinous feathers ! Good, honest, simple-minded, cheerful, 
duty-loving Lenchen ! Have not thy brothers, strong and 
dutiful as thou, lent their gravity and earnestness to sweeten 
and strengthen the fierce youth of the republic beyond the 
seas, and shall not thy children inherit the broad prairies 
that still wait for them, and discover the fatness thereof, 
and send a portion Jransmuted in glittering shekels back to 
thee! 

Almost as notable are the children whose round faces 
have as frequently been reflected in my Spion. Whether it 
is only a fancy of mine that the average German retains 
longer than any other race his childish simplicity and un- 
consciousness, or whether it is because I am more accus- 
tomed to the extreme self-assertion and early maturity of 
American children, I know not ; but I am inclined to 
believe that among no other people is childhood as peren- 
nial, and to be studied in such characteristic and quaint 
and simple phases, as here. The picturesqueness of 
Spanish and Italian childhood has a faint suspicion of the 
pantomime and the conscious attitudinising of the Latin 
races. German children are not exuberant or volatile ; they 
are serious — a seriousness, however, not to be confounded 
with the grave reflectiveness of age, but only the abstract 
wonderment of childhood. For all those who have made 
a loving study of the young human animal will, I think, 



Views from a German Spion. 397 

admit that its dominant expression is gravity and not play- 
fulness, and will be satisfied that he erred pitifully who 
first ascribed '* light-heartedness " and "thoughtlessness " as 
part of its phenomena. These little creatures I meet upon 
the street, whether in quaint wooden shoes and short woollen 
petticoats, or neatly booted and furred, with school knap- 
sacks jauntily borne upon little square shoulders, all carry 
likewise in their round chubby faces their profound wonder- 
ment and astonishment at the big busy world into which 
they have so lately strayed. It I stop to speak with this 
little maid who scarcely reaches to the top-boots of yonder 
cavalry officer, there is less of bashful self-consciousness in 
her sweet little face than of grave wonder at the foreign 
accent and strange ways of this new figure obtruded upon 
her limited horizon. She answers honestly, frankly, prettily, 
but gravely. There is a remote possibihty that I might bite, 
and with this suspicion plainly indicated in her round blue 
eyes, she quietly slips her little red hand from mine, and 
moves solemnly away. I remember once to have stopped 
in the street with a fair countrywoman of mine to interrogate 
a little figure in sabots — the one quaint object in the long, 
formal perspective of narrow, gray bastard Italian fagaded 
houses of a Rhenish-German Strasse. The sweet little 
figure wore a dark blue woollen petticoat that came to its 
knees, gray woollen stockings covered the shapely little 
limbs below, and its very blonde hair, the colour of a bright 
dandelion, was tied in a pathetic little knot at the back of 
its round head, and garnished with an absurd green ribbon. 
Now, although this gentlewoman's sympathies were catholic 
and universal, unfortunately their expression was limited to 
her own mother tongue. She could not help pouring out 
upon the child the maternal love that was in her own 
womanly breast, nor could she withhold the " baby talk " 
through which it was expressed. But, alas ! it was in 



39 8 Views from a German Spion. 

English. Hence ensued a colloquy, tender and extravagant 
on the part of the elder, grave and wondering on the part 
of the child. But the lady had a natural feminine desire 
for reciprocity, particularly in the presence of our emotion- 
scorning sex, and as a last resource she emptied the small 
silver of her purse into the lap of the coy maiden. It was 
a declaration of love, susceptible of translation at the nearest 
cake-shop. But the little maid, whose dress and manner 
certainly did not betray an habitual disregard of gifts of 
this kind, looked at the coin thoughtfully, but not regret- 
fully. Some innate sense of duty, equally strong with that 
of being polite to strangers, filled her consciousness. With 
the utterly unexpected remark that her father did not allow 
her to take money ^ the queer little figure moved away, leav- 
ing the two Americans covered with mortification. The 
rare American child who could have done this, would have 
done it with an attitude. This little German bourgeoise did 
it naturally. I do not intend to rush to the deduction that 
German children of the lower classes habitually refuse pecu- 
niary gratuities; indeed, I remember to have wickedly 
suggested to my companion that, to avoid impoverishment 
in a foreign land, she should not repeat the story nor the 
experiment; but I simply offer it as a fact — and to an 
American at home or abroad a novel one. 

I owe to these little figures another experience quite as 
strange. It was at the close of a dull winter's day — a day 
from which all out-of-door festivity seemed to be naturally 
excluded ; there was a baleful promise of snow in the air, 
and a dismal reminiscence of it underfoot, when suddenly, 
in striking contrast with the dreadful bleakness of the street, 
a half-dozen children, masked and bedizened with cheap 
ribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed across my Spion. 
I was quick to understand the phenomenon. It was the 
Carnival season ! Only the night before I Had been to the 



Views f 7^0 m a German Spion. 399 

great opening masquerade — a famous affair, for which this 
art-loving city is noted, and to which strangers are drawn 
from all parts of the Continent. I remember to have 
wondered if the pleasure-loving German in America had 
not broken some of his conventional shackles in emigration, 
for certainly I had found the Carnival balls of the " Lieder 
Kranz Society " in New York, although decorous and 
fashionable to the American taste, to be wild dissipations 
compared with the practical seriousness of this native 
performance, and I hailed the presence of these children in 
the open street as a promise of some extravagance, real, 
untrammelled, and characteristic. I seized my hat and — 
oimroat^ — a dreadful incongruity to the spangles that had 
whisked by — and followed the vanishing figures round the 
corner. Here they were reinforced by a dozen men and 
women, fantastically but not expensively arrayed, looking 
not unlike the supernumeraries of some provincial opera 
troupe. Following the crowd, which already began to pour 
in from the side-streets, in a few moments I was in the 
broad grove-like allee, and in the midst of the masqueraders. 

I remember to have been told that this was a characteristic 
annual celebration of the lower classes, anticipated with 
eagerness and achieved with difficulty ; indeed, often only 
through the alternative of pawning clothing and furniture 
to provide the means for this ephemeral transformation. I 
remember being warned also that the buffoonery was coarse, 
and some of the slang hardly fit for "ears polite." But I 
am afraid that I was not shocked at the prodigality of tliese 
poor people, who purchased a holiday on such hard condi- 
tions ; and as to the coarseness of the performance, / felt 
that I certainly might go where these children could. 

At first the masquerading figures appeared to be mainly 
composed of young girls of ages varying from nine to 
eighteen. Their costumes — if what was often only the 



400 Views from a German Spion. 

addition of a broad, bright-coloured stripe to the hem of a 
short dress could be called a costume — were plain, and 
seemed to indicate no particular historical epoch or char- 
acter. A general suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire 
was dominant in all the costumes. Everybody was closely 
masked. All carried a short, gaily striped bdfon of split 
wood, called a " Pritsche" which, when struck sharply on 
the back or shoulders of some spectator or sister masker, 
emitted a clattering, rasping sound. To wander hand in 
hand down this broad allee, to strike almost mechanically 
and often monotonously at each other with their batons, 
seemed to be the extent of that wild dissipation. The 
crowd thickened : young men with false noses, hideous 
masks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers in 
uniform, crowded past each other up and down the prome- 
nade, all carrying a Fritsche, and exchanging blows with 
each other, but always with the same slow seriousness of 
demeanour, which, with their silence, gave the performance 
the effect of a religious rite. Occasionally some one 
shouted ; perhaps a dozen young fellows broke out in song ; 
but the shout was provocative of nothing, the song faltered 
as if the singers were frightened at their own voices. One 
blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped shoulders, 
began to dance, but on the crowd stopping to observe him 
seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped 
away. Nevertheless, the solemn beating of Pntsche over 
each other's backs went on. I remember that I was 
followed the whole length of the allee by a little girl scarcely 
twelve years old, in a bright striped skirt and black mask, 
who from time to time struck me over the shoulders with 
a regularity and sad persistency that was peculiarly irresis- 
tible to me j the more so, as I could not help thinking that 
it was not half as amusing to herself. Once only did the 
ordinary brusque gallantry of the Carnival spirit show itself. 



Views from a Germa7i Spion. 401 

A man with an enormous pair of horns, like a half-civilised 
satyr, suddenly seized a young girl and endeavoured to kiss 
her. A slight struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected 
in the girl's face and manner the confusion and embarrass- 
ment of one who was obliged to overlook, or seem to 
accept, a familiarity that was distasteful, rather than be 
laughed at for prudishness or ignorance ; but the incident 
was exceptional. Indeed, it was particularly notable to my 
American eyes to find such decorum where there might 
easily have been the greatest license. I am afraid that an 
American mob of this class would have scarcely been as 
orderly and civil under the circumstances. They might 
have shown more humour, but there would have probably 
been more effrontery ; they might have been more exube- 
rant, they would certainly have been drunker. I did not 
notice a single masquerader unduly excited by liquor — 
there was not a word or motion from the lighter sex that 
could have been construed into an impropriety. There 
was something almost pathetic to me in this attempt to 
wrest gaiety and excitement out of these dull materials — to 
fight against the blackness of that wintry sky, and the stub- 
born hardness of the frozen soil, with these painted sticks 
of wood — to mock the dreariness of their poverty with 
these flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or, 
rather, consistent with my idea of them. There was incon- 
gruity deeper than their bizarre externals ; a half-melancholy, 
half-crazy absurdity in their action, the substitution of a 
grim spasmodic frenzy for levity, that rightly or wrongly 
impressed me. When the increasing gloom of the evening 
made their figures undistinguishable, I turned into the first 
cross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent young 
friend with the Frifsche, I fancied she looked as relieved as 
myself If, however, I was mistaken — if that child's path- 
way through life be strewn with rosy recollections of the 
VOL. III. 2 c 



402 Views from a German Spion. 

unresisting back of the stranger American — if any burden, 
O Gretchen, laid upon thy young shoulders be lighter for 
the trifling one thou didst lay upon mine, know then that I 
too am content. 

And so, day by day has my Spion reflected the various 
changing forms of life before it. It has seen the first flush 
of spring in the broad allee^ when the shadows of tiny 
leaflets overhead were beginning to chequer the cool, square 
flagstones. It has seen the glare and fulness of summer 
sunshine and shadow, the flying of November gold through 
the air, the gaunt Hmbs and stark, rigid, death-like white- 
ness of winter. It has seen children in their queer, wicker 
baby-carriages, old men and women, and occasionally that 
grim usher of death, in sable cloak and cocked hat — a 
baleful figure for the wandering invalid tourist to meet — 
who acts as undertaker for this ducal city, and marshals 
the last melancholy procession. I well remember my first 
meeting with tMs ominous functionary. It was an early 
autumnal morning ; so early that the long formal perspec- 
tive of the allee^ and the decorous, smooth, vanishing lines 
of cream-and-gray fronted houses were unrelieved by a 
single human figure. Suddenly a tall, black spectre, as 
theatrical and as unreal as the painted scenic distance, turned 
the corner from a cross-street and moved slowly towards 
me. A long black cloak, falling from its shoulders to its 
feet, floated out on either side like sable wings, a cocked 
hat trimmed with crape and surmounted by a hearse-like 
feather covered a passionless face, and its eyes, looking 
neither left nor right, were fixed fatefully upon some distant 
goal. Stranger as I was to this Continental ceremonial 
figure, there was no mistaking his functions as the grim 
messenger knocking " with equal foot " on every door ; and, 
indeed, so perfectly did he act and look his role, that there 
was nothing ludicrous in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial 



Views fro7n a German Spion. 403 

expression and dignity of bearing were perfect ; the whole 
man seemed saturated with the accepted sentiment of his 
office. Recalling the half-confused and half-conscious 
ostentatious hypocrisy of the American sexton, the shame- 
less absurdities of the EngHsh mutes and mourners, I could 
not help feeling that, if it were demanded that Grief and 
Fate should be personified, it were better that it should be 
well done. And it is one observation of my Spion that this 
sincerity and belief is the characteristic of all Continental 
functionaries. 

It is possible that my Spion has shown me little that is 
really characteristic of the people, and the few observations 
I have made I offer only as an illustration of the impressions 
made upon two-thirds of American strangers in the larger 
towns of Germany. Assimilation goes on more rapidly than 
we are led to imagine. As I have seen my friend Karl, 
fresh and awkward in his first uniform, lounging later down 
the allee with the blase Hstlessness of a full-blown militaire, so 
I have seen American and English residents gradually lose 
their peculiarities, and melt and merge into the general mass. 
Returning to my Spion after a flying trip through Belgium 
and France, as I look down the long perspective of the 
Strasse, I am conscious of recalling the same style of 
architecture and humanity at Aachen, Brussels, Lille, and 
Paris ; and am inclined to believe that, even as I would 
have met in a journey of the same distance through a 
parallel of the same latitude in America a greater diversity 
of type and character, and a more distinct flavour of 
locality, even so would I have met a more heterogeneous 
and picturesque display from a club window on Fifth 
Avenue, New York, or Montgomery Street, San Francisco. 



( 404 ) 



Peter ©cftroeHer* 

When we heard that Peter Schroeder had *' struck it rich,*' 
or, to paraphrase the local idiom, had that morning taken 
fifty thousand dollars from a suddenly developed " pocket " 
in his claim, only one expression, that of sincere con- 
gratulation, went up from Spanish Gulch. It would, per- 
haps, be wrong to say that this feeling arose from any 
instinctive perception of his fitness for good fortune, or 
even of his practical deserts. Spanish Gulch was seldom 
moved by such delicate ethics. But he had always been a 
lovable figure in its rude life. His quaint, serious good 
nature ; his touching belief in ourselves as representative 
Americans, and the legitimate results of those free insitutions 
he admired so in theory; his innocent adoption of our 
slang, and often of our vices, which made even an oath or 
vulgarism from his lips as harmless and irresponsible as 
from a child's — all this gave " Dutch Pete," as he loved to 
be called, a certain place in our affections which no stroke 
of enviable good fortune could imperil. More than this, I 
think we took a great satisfaction in believing that in some 
way we were part of that Providence which had so blessed 
him. A few, I think, intimated as much. *' I'm so glad I 
alius told the old man to stick to that claim," said one, with 
an air of wearied well-doing; "I alius kept him up to the 
rack, and I reckon he now sees the benefit of my four years' 
experience in these parts." " Only yesterday," said another. 



Peter Schroeder. 405 

" I lent him a pick, seein' his was rather shaky, — and they 
say thar's luck in old tools in green hands." 

A majority of the camp called upon him at once. The 
result of their visit satisfied them. Unchanged, unaltered 
by good fortune, Peter Schroeder welcomed them in his old 
simple way^ and in that old simple, blundering slang which, 
to the delight of the camp, he was pleased to accept as 
idiomatic American speech. He stood beside a table 
covered with a vivid red blanket, which displayed from this 
vantage a huge fragment of decomposed quartz, dazzlingly 
streaked and honeycombed with the precious metal. Above 
it hung a placard — the gift of a native humorist — bearing 
the legend, " Welcome, little stranger." 

" Come in, poys, and tondt pe pashful. Sits doun from 
de front ! De elefant now goes round mit you. De pand 
pegins to play. Dare she ish — look at it, shentlemans ! 
You dakes your money and you bays your schoice. Ha ! 
ha! Vot for a strike ist dot? Eh? How high is dot, 
poys ? " 

When the laugh at his characteristic version of a slang 
phrase in the last sentence had subsided, some one asked 
him what he intended to do, now that he was a rich 
man. 

"Well, poys, dot's shoost it. I goes to Washington /r^/. 
I looks round and maype I finds Dick Unterwoots, and I 
goes mit him mit de army — and I fights a little for de 
Union." The Dick Underwood here alluded to had 
recently exchanged his long-handled Californian shovel for 
the sword, and was now, in this last year of the Civil War, 
a colonel. 

"But you'll get killed, Pete, and what's the good of 
your money then ? " 

"So ! I sends it first to my fader and moder in 
Shermany." 



4o6 Peter Sckroeder, 

"But it's none of your funeral, Pete. You're only a 
blank Dutchman." 

"Eh— a Dootchman! Veil, vot's Sigel, eh? Vet's 
Rosenkrans, eh ? Vot's Heintzleman ? Vot's Carl Schurz, 
eh?" 

In vain did Spanish Gulch point out the egi^gious folly 
of a rich alien engaging in a domestic quarrel ; Peter was 
firm in his determination. And Spanish Gulch, having by 
experience learned to respect his dull obstinacy in those 
matters of his private conscience which did not directly 
interfere with his duties to the camp, yielded the point 
gracefully, and gave him — in one farewell debauch — their 
half-maledictory valediction. 

Peter Schroeder was as good as his word. Within three 
weeks he entered the Army of the Potomac, and served 
until the Richmond surrender. It is to be recorded that, 
although faithful, loyal, honest, and brave, only a sergeant's 
chevron marked his advancement. Perhaps he was .not 
ambitious ; possibly old habits of military servitude kept 
him out of the political manoeuvrings of these citizen 
bayonets ; perhaps he had no personal friends at Washing- 
ton ; perhaps he was a little dull. But it is to be also 
recorded that his dogged devotion to his theories of the 
great Republican principles for which he was contending 
never faltered amidst the free and outspoken criticism of 
superiors and general grumbling of these citizen camps. 
Malcontents feared him, even good patriots quite misunder- 
stood his sentimental convictions — he was a confusion to 
his comrades as often as he was to the enemy. I close his 
brief military record with a story still extant, but until now 
imperfect in its details. A gallant Confederate officer, and 
a descendant of the Virginian founders of the Republic, 
found himself, after the shattered onset of a brave but 
unsuccessful charge, lying wounded and crippled before the 



Peter Schroeder. 407 

earthwork of a battery, deserted by his men and confronted 
only by the guns of his adversary, and the flag his ancestors 
had created flaunting in his face ! " I looked up, gentle- 
men," he said, "and the sergeant of the Yankee battery 
saw me, and at the risk of his life crept down and dragged 
me into the works. He was a German ; so I felt thankful 
that I wasn't under obhgations to a Yankee. But what did 
he do ? Why, gentlemen, this d — d Dutchman — who 
couldn't speak the language plainly — who hadn't, I solemnly 
believe, being a fortnight in America, he looks down at me, 
and, pointing to my crippled leg, says, " Aha ! dot's wot 
you gets for fightin' against de old flag / " If a mule had 
kicked me I couldn't have felt meaner." The mule that 
had kicked this gallant gentleman was Peter Schroeder. 
But it was a Parthian kick. A few days later he was honour^ 
ably discharged, drew his back-pay and bounty, and sailed 
for Germany. 

Fifteen years had elapsed. Peter Schroeder, much 
stouter and quite bald, sat in that inevitable latticed 
summer-house which is one of the sacred outdoor Penates 
of every Rhenish householder, and seriously sipped his 
Moselle wine. He was not thinking that his curiously 
wrought iron garden-chair was not as comfortable as an 
American rocker or armchair — he was long past that grum- 
bling ; he was not thinking the table too high and insecure 
for his feet to rest on, for Frau Schroeder had in the first 
year of his married life interdicted that American attitude 
of reflection and bibulous enjoyment. He was not looking 
at the inevitable little fountain, whose stone basin suggested 
a hasty provision against a leak from some invisible water- 
cask, nor at the inevitable little grotto — a child's playground 
of bright shells and pebbles artistically arranged by a grown- 
up player. None of these, nor even the statue of Germania 



4o8 Peter Schroeder. 

looking like Lorelei with a helmet, nor of Lorelei looking 
like Germania with a harp, nor even of a bust of the good 
old Emperor, looking always like his own august self, and 
regarding reprehensible mythology with fatherly forbearance, 
attracted Peter's attention. His serious blue eyes were 
filmy and abstracted; the pinky red of his round cheeks 
was a little deeper for that digestive glow known in the rich 
vernacular of his analytical nation as '-^ Ess fleher ;^^ his 
respiration was slightly stertorous, and his pipe had gone 
out idly in his hand — Peter was dreaming. 

Of the Past. Of the fifteen long years that had flown 
since he arrived, almost a stranger, in his own land ; of his 
reception by his few old friends — a reception given to a 
new Peter whom they had evidently never known ; of the 
joy of his old parents — a joy tempered with a kind of awe 
at his fortune and his novel ideas and heresies ; of the 
matchmaking of his parents that ended in his betrothal to 
the well-born but slightly dowered Fraulein Von Hummel ; 
of the marriage that smoothed those parents' dying pillow, 
but left Peter's bridal couch lonelier than before ; of his 
relegation to a new life to which he was stranger than ever. 

Of the monotony of those days, of the monotony of all 
outward signs and symbols, band-playing, concert-singing, 
picture-viewing, troops parading night and morning before 
his window, of festivals, of fetes, of celebrations of all con- 
ceivable things to celebrate, — all alike — uniform, theatrical, 
and unreal, and yet, too, all established with precedent, 
and often reinforced with the serene presence of hereditary 
greatness. Of the monotony of his home life; of the 
monotony of five meals a day seriously considered and 
dutifully performed ; of betrothals and love-making under 
the parental and public eye ; of sentimental hand-shakings 
and speech-makings to bride and bridegroom, and the 
pointed obtrusion of domestic and personal affairs before 



Peter Schroeder, 409 

the world, as shown in the sentimental public advertisement 
of such conventionalities as births, deaths, and marriages. 

Of the great war with France, which for ever estopped 
his voluble reminiscences of his former transatlantic military 
career, by leaving him no longer an authority in slaughter 
and gunpowder, rekindled his old ardour for Der Vaterland, 
dragged him into its seething vortex, and left him, at last, 
stranded in his own town, wath more parading, more rattle 
of drums, more celebrations to celebrate, more precedents, 
and, in fact, more settled convictions to combat than ever. 

A clap of thunder recalled his wandering senses. Look- 
ing up, he saw above the lindens that stood in his garden 
a blue-black velvety cloud. It was the natural climax of a 
sultry summer's day; but Peter's thoughts were so dark 
that it seemed to be as ominous as the cloud that rose 
above the Arabian fisherman's jar when the awful seal of 
Solomon was broken. In such a mood Faust received a 
visit from Mephistopheles, and at this moment, at his elbow, 
a servant was presenting a card. 

*' Mr. John Folinsbee," read Peter aloud. 

" A gentleman and four ladies," explained the servant. 

Peter's mental processes were slowly evolving something. 

" Strangers," suggested the maiden ; " I think Ameri- 
cans." 

The magical note of nationality sent the good-hearted 
Peter into his drawing-room, pleased, yet embarrassed as a 
schoolgirl. 

Certainly no weakness of this kind was visible in his 
guests. Three of them, young ladies, were scattered about 
the room ; one at the piano, one at the centre table, look- 
ing over a book of photographs, and another beside the 
jardi7iiere^ from which she had already extracted the rose- 
bud suited to her complexion. On the sofa another, and 
possibly the elder, if a certain air of lassitude and ennui 



4IO Peter Schroeder. 

were a criterion of age, had gracefully composed herself. 
All were pretty, all were graceful, all were exceedingly well- 
dressed, and all were, to Peter's half-pleasure, half-embar- 
rassment, very much at home ! 

They acknowledged his smile of welcome by an inquiring 
glance towards a gentleman who at that moment was en- 
gaged in examining a barometer at the window. He dis- 
engaged himself from his meteorological inquest, came for- 
ward with easy good-humour, and held out his hand. He 
was a tall, well-formed man, of Peter's own age, but looked, 
like the rest of his party, as if he were a thousand years 
younger. 

" Peter Schroeder, I reckon ? " 

Peter's face beamed with delight as he shook the out- 
stretched hand warmly. 

'-'Ja! dot's schoost it — Peter Schroeder." 

" You don't remember me ?" continued the stranger, with 
a slight smile. " I never saw you but once, and that was 
at Spanish Gulch, the day you made that strike ! I came 
over from Dry Creek with the boys, and went up to your 
cabin. How are you, old man? You're looking as if your 
grub agreed with you." 

Peter, still shaking his hand, said in his half-forgotten 
English, that he knew him " from de voorst ! " 

" When I left California, a month ago, I promised the 
boys I'd hunt you up," continued the stranger. " I stopped 
at Cologne yesterday. Heard you were here. Came up 
on a sort of pasear with the ladies. Let me introduce 
them. Rosey Tibbets, Grace Tibbets, Minnie Tibbets, 
Mrs. Johnson." 

Peter, always a bashful man, under this presentation of 
bright eyes and Parisian toilettes could only stammer out 
his regrets that the Frau Schroeder was that day absent — 
visiting a soul-friend — and was not there to welcome them. 



Peter Schroeder, 411 

Mrs. Johnson, looking up from the sofa, would have so 
liked to see her ; Miss Rosey, looking up from the photo- 
graph-book, would have so liked to see her ; Miss Grace, 
at the piano, and Miss Minnie, with the delicate petals of a 
rose against her pink nostrils, would have both so liked to 
see her. Indeed, the only one present who might not have 
participated in this chorus was poor Peter himself, who, 
despite his previous polite assurance, felt a vague relief at 
his wife's absence. Conscious of this weakness, he insisted 
the more upon plying them with various refreshments, and 
" showing them the house." 

Several American improvements which he had intro- 
duced, to the wonder and distrust of his neighbours, failed, 
however, to impress his visitors. The ladies regarded them 
languidly: "You've got the old-fashioned kind. We use 
only the self-acting patent now," they said. ." You're behind 
the age, old man," was Folinsbee's less courteous comment. 
Peter, a trifle mortified, nevertheless kept up his unfailing 
good-humour, and finally stopped before the door of a 
small chamber with a confident air. " I shows you some- 
dings now dot you can't imbrove on — ha ! Somedings vot 
you and us fellus knows. Dot is mine own brivate abart- 
ment. Vot for Americans is dot ? " 

As he spoke he flung open the door, and disclosed a 
small room, with an American flag festooned over the 
window. On one side of the wall hung a portrait of 
Abraham Lincoln ; on the other, the blue cap and blouse 
of a sergeant in the American army. 

Peter paused to permit the patriotic feelings of his 
visitors their fullest vent. To his surprise, only a dead 
silence followed this national exhibition. Peter, doubtful 
of their eyesight, drew aside the window-curtains, and 
ostentatiously wiped the portrait of the martyred President. 

" Dot is Lincoln." 



412 Peter Schroeder. 

" Chromo ? " asked Folinsbee. 

" I don't know," replied Peter, a little crestfallen. 

**The engravings don't make him quite so ugly," said 
Mrs. Johnson, " although he was an ugly man." 

"Awful," said Miss Rosey. 

Peter smiled meekly. " He wasn't bretty as a womans," 
he said, with an embarrassed attempt at gallantry, followed 
by an apoplectic blush. 

" What's that ? " asked Folinsbee, indicating the cap and 
blouse with his cane. " Some of your mining duds from 
Spanish Gulch?" 

" Dot ? " gasped Peter. " Dot is mine uniforms ! " 

Folinsbee laughed. " I thought it might be some of that 
damaged clothing condemned by the War Department, and 
sold at auction there. The boys bought up a lot of it 
cheap to knock around in the tunnels with. Yes, I 
remember now. The fellers had a mighty good joke on 
your goin' into the War when you hadn't any call to go." 

" Which side were you on, Mr. Schroeder ? " asked Mrs. 
Johnson, with a polite affectation of interest. 

"Which side?" echoed Peter in vague astonishment. 
" I fights mit de Union." 

" I had an uncle in the Federal army, and two cousins 
in the Confederate service," observed Miss Minnie lan- 
guidly. 

"Dey wos good fellers on the oder side too," hastily 
interpolated the kind-hearted Peter. 

" They came home awfully sick of it — all of 'em," con- 
tinued Miss Minnie. " I'm sure it was dreadfully horrid." 

" Awful," said Rosey. 

Meanwhile they had backed out of the room listlessly, 
and were clearly indicating that they were awaiting Peter's 
further movements. He closed the door with an embar- 
rassing laugh that was half a sigh, and led the way back to 



Peter Schroeder, 413 

the drawing-room. On the way Miss Rosey stopped to 
admire the photograph of a stout, good-humoured gentle- 
man in a gorgeous hussar uniform. 

" Who is this ? " 

" Dot is me — myself," said Peter — " wen I was in de war 
mit France," he added apologetically. To his surprise, 
the ladies gathered before it with an appearance of interest ; 
and Mrs. Johnson remarked archly that the uniform was 
very becoming. 

"Why didn't you show the girls that first V asked 
IJL.z^f^.Q, taking Peter aside. " Why did you trot out 
those old army rags of yours? Don't you know they're 
just crazy after these foreign uniforms ? Think there's a 
count or baron inside of 'em always. By the way," he 
asked suddenly, " you ain't anything o' that sort now, are 
you?" 

Peter shook his head blankly, but found himself blushing 
as he thought of his wife's uniformed relations. 

"Didn't get anything of that kind for your services?" 
continued Folinsbee. " Nary ribbon — medals — eh ? " 

" I get de ' Iron Cross,' " said Peter mildly. 

" Humph ! Iron Cross ! Couldn't afford a gold one, 
eh? Not much of that lying round loose here in these 
parts?" 

Too modest to explain further, too delicate to expose 
what he conceived to be the natural ignorance of his foreign 
visitor, but utterly oblivious of the mischief in that foreign 
visitor's eye, Peter endeavoured to turn the subject by 
asking him to bring the ladies to dine with him the next 
day. 

" I reckon not, old man," said Folinsbee. " I'll be on 
my way to Berlin to-morrow, and I reckon the girls are 
headin' up the Rhine to tackle some of them ruined castles. 
But you might ask 'em, just for a flyer." 



414 Peter Schroeder, 

" Don't you all go mit yourselves together ? " queried the 
astonished Peter. 

Folinsbee smiled. " Not much, I reckon. We only met 
at Brussels, and we happened to travel in the same coupe to 
Cologne. We sorter passed the time o' day, swapped lies, 
and made ourselves sociable. I told 'em at Cologne I 
reckoned to run up yer to see you, and asked 'em to come 
along. It was a little /^i-^r— that's all. They're all right, 
old man," he added, laughing at Peter's puzzled face — 
"one of 'em a senator's daughter, I reckon. If they ain't 
right, I'm responsible." 

Peter laughed and blushed. Not that he saw anything 
in this escapade but an instance of that Republican simpli- 
city and social freedom which he admired in theory ; but 
he was conscious that his new life had brought with it 
responsibilities to other customs. He was vaguely relieved 
that his wife was not present to hear Folinsbee's explana- 
tion, and, later, that the ladies politely declined his invita- 
tion. 

Nevertheless, he parted with them reluctantly. When 
the smart landau drove up to his door, and they took their 
places, serene and self-possessed, under the wondering and 
critical fire of his neighbours' Spions, they seemed such a 
vision of happy, confident, graceful, beautiful, and fitly 
adorned youth, that, as he re-entered his house, he felt he 
had grown a hundred years older, and even his famihar 
surroundings appeared to belong to another epoch and 
planet. He mounted slowly to the little room which con- 
tained his treasures. He looked at them again carefully ; 
inspected the grave melancholy of Lincoln's face, and lifted 
the blue blouse from its nail. Were those features " ugly" ? 
was that blouse a " rag " ? Peter pondered long and per- 
plexedly. Gradually an explanation slowly evolved itself 
from its profundity. He placed his finger beside his nose, 



Peter Schroeder. 415 

and a look of deep cunning shone in his eyes. " Dot's it," 
he said to himself triumphantly, " dot's shoost it ! Der 
Rebooplicans don't got no memories. Ve don't got nodings 
else:' 

He did not, however, confide to his wife the full details 
of this visit. But one day, when she had returned from 
visiting a remote cousin at Kissingen, she asked him why 
he had never told her that Mrs. Johnson had called. The 
guilty blood flew to Peter's face, and he stammered out 
some half-intelligible excuse. To his infinite relief and 
astonishment, however, Frau Schroeder, far from noticing 
his confusion, spoke volubly of having met Mrs. Johnson at 
Kissingen, and dwelt at some length on the gentlemanly 
graces and breeding of Mr. Johnson. " He did not call with 
her, then ? " asked Mrs. Schroeder. Peter, stammering and 
untruthful, really could not remember. There were half a 
dozen people, and they did not stop long. " I forget if 
she said that her husband knew you," continued Frau 
Schroeder ; " but you would remember him, of course. 
He's not like the Americans, you know — but like a — a 
gentleman and — an — officer." Peter, not daring to allude 
to the informal character of Mrs. Johnson's escort, said 
nothing. " They are coming here next week," added Frau 
Schroeder ; " I have invited them." As Peter seldom had 
a voice in the nomination of his visitors, he meekly acqui- 
esced. " But vot gets me," he communed with himself, "how 
dot bretty Mrs. Johnson, mit no cards, gets mine wife." 

The next week brought Mrs. Johnson, who languidly 
remembered Peter, and at once made herself as much at 
home with Peter's wife as she had with him. It brought 
also Mr. Johnson— a small, quiet, plain man. 

"You would hardly remember me as a Californian, Mr. 
Schroeder ? " he said, extending his hand. 

Peter would hardly have recognised him even as an 



4 1 6 Peter Schroeder. 

American. Certainly no one could be further from the 
type most familiar to Peter. He was unlike Folinsbee — 
unlike any of his old army comrades — unlike any other 
American he had known, and yet as certainly unlike any 
European with whom Peter was familiar. He was as con- 
fident and self-possessed as Folinsbee, and yet without 
Folinsbee's humorous familiarity ; he was modfest and un- 
assuming, and yet Peter felt that he took possession of him 
as securely as Folinsbee had. He was inclined to resent 
this at first — inclined to watch Mr. Johnson's mouth — a 
peculiar mouth, with a latent apologetical smile — a smile as 
if humanity on all occasions presented a humorous aspect 
to him (Johnson) which nothing but his (Johnson's) thought- 
full commiseration for humanity kept him from publicly 
noticing. 

" Yet," continued Johnson, regarding Peter as a wayward, 
mirth-provoking child, " yet I have lived in California many 
years. I remember to have heard of you there ; of your 
good fortune, of your subsequent career in the army, and 
of your return here. I have known many of your friends. 
Indeed, I feel as if we were old acquaintances." 

That was what he said. His smiling commentary seemed 
to Peter to add as plainly, " And there are humorous depths 
in your career and character, Peter, which nobody knows 
better than myself; but we won't say anything about that, 
Peter — not a word." 

Considerably embarrassed, Peter asked him a few ques- 
tions. But he was annoyed at the extent and variety of 
Mr. Johnson's knowledge of his affairs. Scarcely a person 
Peter had known — scarcely an incident in Peter's experience 
— but were as equally and humorously recognised by Mr. 
Johnson. Peter's first partner in the mines, the bugler in 
his regiment, his fellow-passenger and room-mate in the 
:.:teamer, his banker and friend in Cologne, even his wife's 



Peter Sckroeder. 4 1 7 

relations — yea, actually, a certain awe-inspiring General and 
forty-first cousin of Frau Schroeder's at Coblentz, were all 
familiar to Johnson. And all and each were, on the autho- 
rity of his peculiar smile, more or less ridiculous, if he chose 
to say so. But he wouldn't. 

Perhaps it was this appearance of restrained power, com- 
bined with great gentleness of manner, which made him 
so popular with the women, and particularly with Frau 
Schroeder. No American had before touched that formal, 
well-regulated woman's heart. Peter was astounded at the 
influence this stranger had gained in the Von Hummel 
family. Had he not intimated, by his peculiar smile, that 
he was sure that the Herr General Von Hummel drank too 
much, and that the family were more than once scandalised 
by his too susceptible weaknesses for the fair sex ? Had 
he not suggested in the same way that the learned Herr 
Professor's last book on Ethnology was ridiculous — as, 
indeed, some critics had already said — but insinuated that 
he was even capable of greater folly ? Honest Peter could 
not understand it. Folinsbee, with his blunt. familiarity and 
frivolity, would have been coldly repulsed by Frau Schroeder. 
Peter even now shuddered as he recalled the blank and 
even resentful amazement with which she had received the 
characteristic humour of an American tourist to whom he 
had once, in their earlier married life, rashly introduced her. 
Who was this Mr. T. Barker Johnson ? Even the usual 
local caution regarding a stranger's social and financial stand- 
ing was withheld. Frau Schroeder spoke of him as a 
Californian capitalist. His banker — Peter's banker too — 
knew him as a man of ample remittances. That was all. 

For two weeks the stranger had held undoubted sway at 
the Schroeders'. Dinners and suppers had been given in 
his honour. General Von Hummel had sat late with him at 
table ; the Herr Professor had presented him with his last 

VOL. III. 2 D 



4 1 8 Peter Sckroeder, 

volume and disclosed his future literary intentions. Even 
Peter was conscious of being lifted into importance in his 
own family by his former residence in the country of this 
popular stranger and his familiarity with Americans. Little 
as he knew of the type represented by Johnson, he was 
compelled in sheer self-defence to assume a thorough know- 
ledge of it ; and I fear the poor fellow went even so far— 
when the praises of Johnson were being hymned in his ears 
— as to invent florid reminiscences of other Johnsons more 
extraordinary than this. " Wunderschon ! " gasped the apo- 
plectic General. " Man knows when man in that wonderful 
country has been," said Peter, shaking his head senten- 
tiously. The Frau Schroeder did not endorse this sentiment. 
" There are Americans — and Americans ! " she said signi- 
ficantly ; and Peter was fain to retire to his little room, and, 
in company with his pipe, contemplate the portrait of Lincoln 
and the faded trappings of his old military service. 

He was sitting thus one evening, when there came a tap 
at his door. It opened to Johnson — quiet, gentlemanly, 
and humorously sympathetic. Peter was a little embar- 
rassed. Since the exhibition of his treasures to the Folinsbee 
party he had grown doubtful of their effect upon strangers, 
and had said nothing of them to Johnson. But that gentle- 
man smiled on Lincoln's picture as on a brother humorist, 
and looked at Peter's blouse and cap with an evident instinc- 
tive foreknowledge of all that was laughable in his history. 

" You knew dot Lincoln ? " queried Peter timidly, pointing 
with his pipe at the picture. 

Johnson smiled. It presently appeared that he not only 
knew all that contemporary history knew of the martyred 
President, but many facts yet unrecorded. To Mr. Lincoln's 
humour — as interpreted by Peter in one or two well-worn 
anecdotes — Mr. Johnson accorded the recognition of a 
thoughtful smile, while in Peter's clothes he detected evi- 



Peter Schroeder. 419 

dently some kindred and latent folly. Emboldened by his 
sympathy, Peter confided to him the history of his life, his 
aims, his political theories and dreams, and even his recent 
disappointment at the conduct of Folinsbee and his friends. 
*'Yes," said Peter, "he called mine uniform 'rags' — dot 
was not an oopside ding to say, Mr. Johnson, and I says mit 
mineself, * Der Rebooplicans don't got no memories ' — eh ? " 

Mr. Johnson smiled assentingly, patiently, expectantly — 
quite as if he were previously aware of all Peter had told 
him — but was too polite to interrupt him. Then, laying 
his hand on Peter's shoulder, he said softly, "You're too 
good a Republican, Peter, to brood over mere sentimental 
memories. Now, look here. I like you, and I want to be 
frank with you. I know you, and you're not properly appre- 
ciated here — even by your own family. It is time, Peter, 
you should assert yourself It is time they should know 
what you are. You are the stuff from which Liberators 
and Deliverers are made. I saw it when I first saw you — 
long before you ever knew me." 

The most modest and unassuming man has somewhere 
within him the germ of self-conscious merit, which needs 
only the sunshine of praise to bud and blossom into life. 
Poor Peter had never known praise before — perhaps he had 
never missed it — but, tasting the strange fruit, he found it 
good, and that, like other forbidden fruit, it made him a 
god like others, and, with his face glowing with pleasure, he 
seized and shook Johnson's hand warmly. He was still 
too unsophisticated to disguise his feelings. Perhaps, 
having already suffered from modesty, he did not care to 
simulate it. 

" It rests with you^ Peter, to make yourself what you 
should be — what you can be," continued Johnson. " What 
if I told you of another country, Peter — newer and fresher 
than the one you once adopted ; where the soil is virgin 



420 Peter Schroeder. 

and the people are plastic — a country to be moulded and 
fashioned into shape by men like you — a country with 
no predilections, few traditions, and 7io history — a republic 
wanting only ideas, and capital — a country that you might 
become president of — as I a??t ? " 

Peter, whose eyes had been growing wider and wider, 
shut them at this climax from sheer inabihty to face the, 
astounding revelation. There was a dead silence. The 
voice of Mrs. Johnson at the piano came melodiously from 
the drawing-room ; the voice of Mrs. Schroeder, inquiring 
for her missing lord, came potentially from the hall below; 
but Peter heeded them not. Johnson smiled, closed the 
door, and drawing a chair beside Peter, in a confidential 
whisper quietly took absorbing possession of his faculties 
for two mortal hours. 



I had arrived at Calais from Brussels near midnight — an 
hour too early for the tidal boat, and in advance of the 
train from Paris. There was scarcely time to seek an hotel 
— too much time to wait at the station, and the keeper of 
the '' buffet " had informed me that his "establishment" 
could not be open for the receipt of custom until the 
arrival of the Paris train. Noticing a light in a cosy sitting- 
room adjoining, I made bold, in spite of his protestations, 
to enter, and was confronted by Jack Folinsbee, much to 
our mutual astonishment. 

His greeting was hearty. " Come in. Don't mind that 
^barkeep.' I'm running this yer concern until the train 
comes in. He tried to turn me off at first, too. But I 
asked him what he reckoned the rent of this old shebang 
would be for two hours. He tore round and thought I was 
crazy, I s'pose, until he saw I meant business, and he fixed 
his price. I paid him and took possession. Now, what'U 
you take, old boy ? Name your pizen. This is my treat. 



Peter Schroeder. 421 

And I didn't think when I left Californy that I'd be run- 
ning a railroad restaurant in France." 

It was true : he had, after his Californian fashion, gratified 
his present whim at a pretty price. The landlord, looking 
upon him as a spendthrift savage, was, I think, a little 
relieved when my appearance took some of the responsi- 
bihty off his hands. By the light of the blazing fire, in a 
comfortable armchair, I did not propose to question the 
propriety of his impulses. 

Our talk naturally fell upon old days and old friends. 
"You remember 'Dutch Pete,' don't you?" asked Folins- 
bee. I did remember Peter Schroeder. "You know," 
continued Jack, "how he took the money he made in that 
big strike, and, instead of getting away with it, goes off m a 
wildgoose chase to fight in the War ? " 
« Yes." 

« Well, he had fool's luck then. Got off without a scratch \ 
went back to Germany a rich man, married and settled 
down, and might have been all right now. But this yer last 
foolishness of his has fixed him— sent him up the flume- 
sure ! " 

I begged Folinsbee to explain. 

"Well, I reckon perhaps fm a little to blame for it too. 
You remember Johnson— T. Barker Johnson— that old 
filibuster?" 
"Yes." 

"He'failed, don't yer know, with Walker in Nicaragua, 
but came mighty near fixing things his own way in Costa 
Rica. Yes, sir," continued Jack, becoming excited, "it 
was a big thing he did down there. All alone, too. Got a 
canoe, by gum ! and pulled out to a ship's yawl, and sorter 
revolutionises the yawl's crew; then he takes that crew to 
the ship and raises a mutiny in the ship, takes command 
of the ship, and calls himself Admiral of the Ometepe Navy, 



42 2 Peter Schroeder, 

and summons a fort to surrender ! And it surrenders — 
blank it all ! — the whole garrison and the Ometepe army 
surrenders. And he was such a quiet man — such a very 
qui-et man ! You remember him, Major, don't you? — such 
a qui-et man — ^just the faintest little snicker round his mouth, 
but alius so qui-et — ^just a lamb." 

I ventured to remind Jack that we were talking of Peter 
Schroeder. 

" That's so. Well Johnson got hisself made President or 
Dictator of the Ometepe Confederacy — or at least one wing 
of it — and came over here incog. ^ to negotiate bonds and 
get money. Well, it was jest my luck about that time to 
meet Mrs. Johnson and a party of nice girls, travelling, and 
I took 'em to see Peter just for a pasear. Peter was just 
about as big a fool as ever, and showed us his army duds, 
and spouted patriotic hog-wash ; and I reckon Mrs. Johnson 
sorter took Peter's measure then and thar. But she says 
nothing, and it comes about in some way that she meets 
Mrs. Peter, who, I reckon, manages Peter and keeps him 
in bounds, and she captures her, and Johnson captures 
Peter, and the game is made. For in less than ten months 
— by gosh ! — the Johnsons have got Peter made over, 
capital and all, to the Ometepe Confederacy. And, as if 
that wasn't enough, d — n me ! if they didn't rope in the 
whole Schroeder family generally— old Frau Schroeder, 
aunts, uncles, cousins, and all. By Jingo ! there was a" 
whole German colony started out to Ometepe to settle, and 
Peter was made Secretary of the Treasury ! " 

" And then " 

Folinsbee looked at me in contemptuous surprise. 
" And then ? Why, of course, the whole thing goes up. 
It might have been a month — I reckon it wasn't more than 
three weeks — that they had a stable Government in Ometepe. 
But it busted at the end of that time — busted clean ? " 



Peter Schroeder, 423 

"And Peter?" 

"That's just it ! You see, all the Germans skedaddled 
except Peter. Even Johnson, I reckon, got clean away. 
But Peter — and that's where his God-forsaken foolishness 
comes in — hangs round and gets captured. At least, you 
don't hear any more about himy 

Folinsbee was wrong. More was heard of Peter 
Schroeder. For, when captured and led out to be shot as 
an insurgent, one of his comrades made an attempt to save 
him, on the plea of his being an innocent German emigrant. 
The General was inexorable ; the firing party was waiting, 
but Peter's friend still pleaded. 

" Let him step to the fjont ! " 

Peter stepped calmly before the loaded muskets. But 
his friend saw in dismay that he had changed his clothes, 
and wore his faded blouse and blue army cap of an Ameri- 
can sergeant. 

"Prisoner, to what nation do you claim to belong?" 

Peter's blue eyes kindled. " Dot's it ! I claim to be an 
American citi " 

The officer's sword waved, there was a crackle of mus- 
ketry and the rising of a pale-blue smoke. And on its 
wings the soul of Peter Schroeder went in quest of his ideal 
Republia 



( 424 ) 



Scorning on tfte Htienuesf. 

I HAVE always been an early riser. The popular legend 
that " Early to bed and early to rise," invariably and 
rhythmically resulted in healthfulness, opulence, and wisdom, 
I beg here to solemnly protest against. As an " unhealthy " 
man, as an "unwealthy" man, and doubtless by virtue of 
this protest an "unwise " man, I am, I think, a glaring ex- 
ample of the untruth of the proposition. 

For instance, it is my misfortune, as an early riser, to 
live upon a certain fashionable avenue, where the practice 
of early rising is confined exclusively to domestics. Conse- 
quently, when I issue forth on this broad, beautiful thorough- 
fare at 6 A.M., I cannot help thinking that I am to a certain 
extent desecrating its traditional customs. I have more 
than once detected the milkman winking at the maid with 
a diabolical suggestion that I was returning from a carouse, 
and Roundsman 9999 has once or twice followed me a 
block or two with the evident impression that I was a 
burglar returning from a successful evening out. Never- 
theless, these various indiscretions have brought me into 
contact with a kind of character and phenomena whose 
existence I might otherwise have doubted. 

First, let me speak of a large class of working people 
whose presence is, I think, unknown to many of those 
gentlemen who are in the habit of legislating or writing 
about them. A majority of these early risers in the neigh- 



I 



Morning on the Avenues, 425 

bourhood of which I may call my '* beat " carry with them 
unmistakable evidences of the American type. I have 
seen so little of that foreign element that is popularly sup- 
posed to be the real working class of the great metropolis 
that I have often been inclined to doubt statistics. The 
ground that my morning rambles cover extends from 
Twenty-third Street to Washington Park, and laterally from 
Sixth Avenue to Broadway. The early rising artisans that 
I meet here, crossing three avenues, the milkmen, the truck 
drivers, the workman, even the occasional tramp— wherever 
they may come from or go to, or what their real habitat 
may be — are invariably Americans. I give it as an honest 
record — whatever its significance or insignificance may be 
— that during the last year, between the hours of 6 and 
8 A.M., in and about the locality I have mentioned I have 
met with but two unmistakable foreigners — an Irishman 
and a German. Perhaps it may be necessary to add to 
this statement that the people I have met at those hours 
I have never seen at any other time in the same locality. 

As to their quality, the artisans were always cleanly 
dressed, intelligent, and respectful. I remember, however, 
one morning, when the ice storm of the preceding night had 
made the sidewalks glistening, smiling, and impassable, to 
have journeyed down the middle of Twelfth Street with a 
mechanic so sooty as to absolutely leave a legible track in 
the snowy pathway. He was the fireman attending the 
engine in a noted manufactory, and in our brief conversation 
he told me many facts regarding his profession, which I fear 
interested me more than the after-dinner speeches of some 
distinguished gentlemen I had heard the preceding night. 
I remember that he spoke of his engine as " she," and related 
certain circumstances regarding her inconsistency, her aber- 
rations, her pettishnesses, that seemed to justify the feminine 
gender. I have a grateful recollection of him as being one 



426 Morning on the Avenues. 

who introduced me to a restaurant where chicory, thinly 
disguised as coffee, was served with bread at five cents a cup, 
and that he honourably insisted on being the host, and paid 
his ten cents for our mutual entertainment with the grace of 
a Barmecide. I remember, in a more genial season— I think, 
early summer— to have found upon the benches of Washington 
Park a gentleman who informed me that his profession was 
that of a "pigeon-catcher," that he contracted with certain 
parties in this city to furnish these birds for what he called their 
" pigeon shoots," and that, in fulfilling this contract he often 
was obliged to go as far west as Minnesota. The details he 
gave, his methods of entrapping the birds, his study of their 
habits, his evident beUef that the city pigeon, however well 
provided for by parties who fondly believed the bird to be 
their own, was really /^r^ naturc^, and consequently " game " 
for the pigeon-catcher, were all so interesting that I Ustened 
to him with undisguised delight. When he had finished, 
however, he said, " And now, sir, being a poor man with 
a large family, and work bein' rather slack this year, if ye 
could oblige me with the loan of a dollar and your address, 
until remittances what I'm expecting come in from Chicago, 
you'll be doin' me a great service, &c., &c." He got the, 
dollar, of course (his information was worth twice the money), 
but I imagine he lost my address. Yet it is only fair to say 
that some days after, relating this experience to a prominent 
sporting man, he corroborated all its details, and satisfied 
me that my pigeon-catching friend, although unfortunate, 
was not an impostor. 

And this leads me to speak of the birds. Of all early 
risers, my most importunate, aggressive, and obtrusive com- 
panions are the English sparrows. Between 7 and 8 a.m. 
they seem to possess the avenue and resent my intrusion. 
I remember, one chilly morning, when I came upon a flurry 
of them, chattering, quarrelling, skimming, and alighting just 



Morning on the Avenues. 427 

before me, I stopped at last, fearful of stepping on the 
nearest. To my great surprise, instead of flying away, he 
contested the ground inch by inch before my advancing foot, 
with its wings outspread and open bill outstretched, very 
much like that ridiculous burlesque of the American eagle, 
which the common canary bird assumes when teased. " Did 
you ever see 'em wash in the fountain in the square ? " said 
Roundsman 9999, early one summer morning. I had not. 
*' I guess they're there yet. Come and see 'em," he said, and 
complacently accompanied me two blocks. I don't know 
which w^as the finer sight : the thirty or forty winged sprites 
dashing in and out of the basin, each the very impersonation 
of a light-hearted, mischievous Puck, or this grave policeman, 
with badge and club and shield, looking on with delight. 
Perhaps my visible amusement, or the spectacle of a brother 
policeman just then going past with a couple of " drunk and 
disorderlies," recalled his official responsibility and duties. 
" They say them foreign sparrows drives all the other birds 
away," he added severely, and then walked off with a certain 
reserved manner, as if it were not impossible for him to be 
called upon some morning to take the entire feathered 
assembly into custody, and if so called upon he should 
do it. 

Next, I think, in procession among the early risers, and 
surely next in fresh and innocent exterior, were the work- 
women or shop girls. I have seen this beautiful avenue on 
its gala afternoon bright with the beauty and elegance of 
an opulent city, but I have seen no more beautiful faces 
than I have seen among these humbler sisters. As the 
mere habits of dress in America, except to a very acute 
critic, give no suggestion of the rank of the w^earer, I can 
imagine an inexperienced foreigner utterly mystified and 
confounded by these girls, who perhaps work a sewing 
machine or walk the long floors of a fashionable dry goods 



428 Morning on the Avenues. 

shop. I remember one face and figure, faultless and com- 
plete — modestly yet most becomingly dressed — indeed a 
figure that Compte-Calix might have taken for one of his 
exquisite studies, which, between 7 and 8 a.m., passed 
through Eleventh Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broad- 
way. So exceptionally fine was her carriage, so chaste and 
virginal her presence, and so refined and even spiritual her 
features, that, as a literary man, I would have been justified 
in taking her for the heroine of a society novel. Indeed I 
had already woven a little romance about her, when one 
morning she overtook me accompanied by another girl- 
pretty, but of a different type — with whom she was earnestly 
conversing. As the two passed me there fell from her 
faultless lips the following astounding sentence : — " And I 
told him if he didn't like it he might lump it, and he 
travelled off on his left ear, you bet." Heaven knows what 
indiscretion this speech saved me from, but the reader will 
understand what a sting the pain of rejection might have 
added to it by the above formula. 

The "morning cocktail" men come next in my experi- 
ence of early rising. I used to take my early cup of coffee 
in the cafe of a certain fashionable restaurant that had a 
bar attached. I could not help noticing that, unlike the 
usual social libations of my countrymen, the act of taking 
a morning cocktail was a solitary one. In the course of 
my experience I cannot recall the fact of two men taking 
an ante-breakfast cocktail together. On the contrary, I 
have observed the male animal rush savagely at the bar, 
demand his drink of the barkeeper, swallow it, and hasten 
from the scene of his early debauchery, or else take it in 
a languid, perfunctory manner, which, I think, must have 
been insulting to the barkeeper. I have observed two men 
whom I had seen drinking amicably together the preceding 
night, standing gloomily at the opposite corners of the bar, 



Morning on the Avenues, 429 

evidently trying not to see each other, and making the 
matter a confidential one with the barkeeper. I have seen 
even a thin disguise of simplicity assumed. I remember 
an elderly gentleman, of most respectable exterior, who 
used to enter the cafe as if he had strayed there accident- 
ally. After looking around carefully, and yet unostenta- 
tiously, he would walk to the bar, and, with an air of affected 
carelessness, state that " not feeling well this morning, he 
guessed he would take — well, he would leave it to the 
barkeeper." The barkeeper invariably gave him a stiff 
brandy cocktail. When the old gentleman had done this 
half-a-dozen times, I think I lost faith in him. I tried 
afterward to glean from the barkeeper some facts regarding 
those experiences, but I am proud to say that he was honour- 
ably reticent. Indeed, I think it may be said, truthfully, 
that there is no record of a barkeeper who has been 
"interviewed." Clergymen and doctors have, but it is well 
for the weaknesses of humanity that the line should be 
drawn somewhere. 

And this reminds me that one distressing phase of early 
rising is the incongruous and unpleasant contact of the 
preceding night. The social yesterday is not fairly over 
before 9 a.m., to-day, and there is always a humorous, some- 
times a pathetic lapping over the edges. I remember one 
morning at 6 o'clock to have been overtaken by a carriage 
that drew up beside me. I recognised the coachman, who 
touched his hat apologetically, as if he wished me to under- 
stand that he was not at all responsible for the condition of 
his master, and I went to the door of the carriage. I was 
astonished to find two young friends of mine, in correct 
evening dress, reclining on each other's shoulders and 
sleeping the sleep of the justly inebriated. I stated this 
fact to the coachman. Not a muscle of his well-trained 
face answered to my smile. But he said, " You see, sir, 



430 Morning on the Avenues. 

we've been out all night, and more than four blocks below, 
they saw you, and wanted me to hail you, but you know 
you stopped to speak to a gentleman, and so I sorter 
lingered, and I drove round the block once or twice and I 
guess I've got 'em quiet again." I looked in the carriage 
door once more on these sons of Belial. They were sleep- 
ing quite unconsciously. A bouton7nlre in the lappel of the 
younger one's coat had shed its leaves which were scattered 
over him with a ridiculous suggestion of the " babes in 
the wood," and I closed the carriage door softly. " I sup- 
pose I'd better take 'em home, sir?" queried the coach- 
man gravely. "Well, yes, John, perhaps you had." 

There is another picture in my early rising experience 
that I wish was as simply and honestly ludicrous. It was 
at a time when the moral sentiment of the metropoHs, 
expressed through ordinance and special legislation, had 
declared itself against a certain form of " variety " enter- 
tainment, and had, as usual, proceeded against the per- 
formers, and not the people who encouraged them, I 
remember, one frosty morning, to have encountered in 
Washington Park my honest friend. Sergeant X., and Rounds- 
man 9999 conveying a party of these derelicts to the 
station. One of the women, evidently, had not had time 
to change her apparel, and had thinly disguised the flowing 
robe and loose cestus of Venus under a ragged " waterproof; " 
while the otlier, who had doubtless posed for Mercury, hid 
her shapely tights in a plaid shawl, and changed her winged 
sandals for a pair of " arctics." Their rouged faces were 
streaked and stained with tears. The man who was with 
them, the male of their species, had but hastily washed 
himself of his Ethiopian presentment, and was still black 
behind the ears ; while an exaggerated shirt collar and frilled 
shirt made his occasional indignant profanity irresistibly 
ludicrous. So they fared on over the glittering snow, 



Morning on the Avenues. 431 

against the rosy sunlight of the square, the gray front of 
the University building, with a few twittering sparrows in the 
foreground, beside the two policemen, quiet and impassive 
as fate. I could not help thinking of the distinguished A., 
the most fashionable B., the wealthy and respectable C, 
the sentimental D., and the man of the world E., who 
were present at the performance, whose distinguished pat- 
ronage had called it into life, and who were then resting 
quietly in their beds, while these haggard servants of their 
pleasaunce were haled over the snow to punishment and 
ignominy. 

Let me finish by recalling one brighter picture of that 
same season. It was early — so early that the cross of 
Grace Church had, when I looked up, just caught the 
morning sun, and for a moment flamed like a crusader's 
symbol. And then the grace and glory of that exquisite 
spire became slowly visible. Fret by fret the sunlight stole 
slowly down, quivering and dropping from each, until at 
last the whole church beamed in rosy radiance. Up and 
down the long avenue the street lay in shadow ; by some 
strange trick of the atmosphere the sun seemed to have 
sought out only that graceful structure for its blessing. 
And then there was a dull rumble. It was the first omni- 
bus — the first throb in the great artery of the reviving city. 
I looked up. The church was again in shadow. 



( 432 ) 



9@B JTnenD tfie Cramp* 

I HAD been sauntering over the clover downs of a certain 
noted New England seaport. It was a Sabbath morning, 
so singularly reposeful and gracious — so replete with the 
significance of the seventh day of rest that even the Sabbath 
bells ringing a mile away over the salt marshes had little 
that was monitory, mandatory, or even supplicatory in their 
drowsy voices. Rather they seemed to call from their 
cloudy towers, like some renegade Muezzin : " Sleep is 
better than prayer ; sleep on, O sons of the Puritans ! 
Slumber still, O deacons and vestrymen. Let, oh let those 
feet that are swift to wickedness curl up beneath thee ; 
those palms that are itching for the shekels of the ungodly, 
lie clasped beneath thy pillow. Sleep is better than 
prayer." 

And, indeed, though it was high morning, sleep was still 
in the air. Wrought upon at last by the combined influ- 
ences of sea and sky and atmosphere, I succumbed, and 
lay down on one of the boulders of a little stony slope that 
gave upon the sea. The great Atlantic lay before me, not 
yet quite awake, but slowly heaving with the rhythmical 
expiration of slumber. There was no sail visible in the 
misty horizon. There was nothing to do but to lie and 
stare at the unwinking ether. 

Suddenly I became aware of the strong fumes of tobacco. 
Turning my head I saw a pale, blue smoke curling up from 



My Friend the Tramp, 433 

behind an adjacent boulder. Rising and climbing over the 
intervening granite, I came upon a little hollow in which, 
comfortably extended on the mosses and lichens, lay a 
powerfully built man. He was very ragged j he was very 
dirty ; there was a strong suggestion about him of his having 
too much hair, too much nail, too much perspiration ; too 
much of those superfluous excrescences and exudations that 
society and civilisation strive to keep under. But it was 
noticeable that he had not much of anything else. It was 
The Tramp. 

With that swift severity with which we always visit rebuke 
upon the person who happens to present any one of our 
vices offensively before us, in his own person, I was deeply 
indignant at his laziness. Perhaps I showed it in my 
manner, for he rose to a half-sitting attitude, returned my 
stare apologetically, and made a movement toward knocking 
the fire from his pipe against the granite. 

" Shure, sur, and if I'd belaved that I was trispassin' on 
yer honour's grounds it's meself that would hev laid down 
on the say-shore and taken the salt waves for me blankits. 
But it's sivinteen miles I've walked this blessed noight, with 
nothin' to sustain me, and hevin' a mortal wakeness to fight 
wid in me bowels, by reason of starvation, and only a bit o' 
baccy that the Widdy Maloney giv me at the cross-roads, 
to kape me up entoirly. But it was the dark day I left me 
home in Milwaukee to walk to Boston, and if ye'll oblige a 
lone man who has left a wife and six children in Milwaukee, 
wid the loan of twenty-five cints, furninst the time he gits 
wurruk, God'll be good to ye." 

It instantly flashed through my mind that the man before 
me had the previous night partaken of the kitchen hos- 
pitality of my little cottage, two miles away. That he 
presented himself in the guise of a distressed fisherman, 
mulcted of his wages by an inhuman captain ; that he had 

VOL. III. 2 E 



434 ^.y Friefid the Tramp, 

a wife lying sick of consumption in the next village, and 
two children, one of them a cripple, wandering in the streets 
of Boston. I remember that this tremendous indictment 
against Fortune touched the family, and that the distressed 
fisherman was provided with clothes, food, and some small 
change. The food and small change had disappeared, but 
the garments for the consumptive wife, where were they ? 
He had been using them for a pillow. 

I instantly pointed out this fact, and charged him with 
the deception. To my surprise he took it quietly and even 
a little complacently. " Bedad, yer roight ; ye see, sur 
(confidentially), ye see, sur, until I get wurruk — and it's 
wurruk I'm lukin' for — I have to desave now and thin to 
shute the locality. Ah, God save us, but on the say-coast 
thay'r that harrud upon thim that don't belong to the say." 

I ventured to suggest that a strong, healthy man like him 
might have found work somewhere between Milwaukee and 
Boston. 

"Ah, but ye see I got free passage on a freight train, 
and didn't sthop. It was in the Aist that I expicted to 
find wurruk." 

" Have you any trade ? " 

"Trade, is it? I'm a brickmaker, God knows, and 
many's the lift I've had at makin' bricks in Milwaukee. 
Sure, I've as aisy a hand at it as any man. Maybe yer 
honour might know of a kill hereabout ? " 

Now, to my certain knowledge, there was not a brick- 
kiln within fifty miles of that spot, and of all unlikely places 
to find one would have been this sandy peninsula, given up 
to the summer residences of a few wealthy people. Yet I 
could not help admiring the assumption of the scamp, who 
knew this fact, as well as myself. But I said, " I can 
give you work for a day or two," and, bidding him gather 
up his sick wife's apparel, led the way across the downs to 



My Friend the Tramp. 435 

my cottage. At first I think the offer took him by surprise, 
and gave him some consternation, but he presently recovered 
his spirits, and almost instantly his speech. '*Ah, wurruk, 
is it ? God be praised ; it's meself that's ready and willin', 
'though maybe me hand is spoilt wid brickmaking." 

I assured him that the work I would give him would 
require no delicate manipulation, and so we fared on over 
the sleepy downs. But I could not help noticing that, 
although an invalid, I was a much better pedestrian than 
my companion, frequently leaving him behind, and that, 
even as a "tramp," he was etymologically an impostor. 
He had a way of lingering beside the fences we had to 
climb over as if to continue more confidentially the history 
of his misfortunes and troubles, which he was delivering to 
me during our homeward walk, and I noticed that he could 
seldom resist the invitation of a mossy boulder or a tussock 
of salt grass. " Ye see, sur," he would say, suddenly sitting 
down, " it's along uv me misfortunes beginning in Mil- 
waukee that" — and it was not until I was out of hearing 
that he would languidly gather his traps again and saunter 
after me. When I reached my own garden gate he leaned 
for a moment over it, with both of his powerful arms ex- 
tended downwards and said, "Ah, but it's a blessin' that 
Sunday comes to give rest fur the wake and the weary, and 
thim as walks sivinteen miles to get it." Of course I took 
the hint. There was evidently no work to be had from my 
friend the Tramp that day. Yet his countenance brightened 
as he saw the limited extent of my domain, and observed 
that the garden, so-called, was only a flower bed about 
twenty-five by ten. As he had doubtless before this been 
utilised to the extent of his capacity in digging, he had pro- 
bably expected that kind of work, and I daresay I discom- 
fited him by pointing him to an almost levelled stone wall 
a,bout twenty feet long, with the remark that his work would 



43^ My Friend the Tramp. 

be the rebuilding of that stone wall with stone brought from 
the neighbouring slopes. In a few moments he was comfort- 
ably provided for in the kitchen, where the cook, a woman 
of his own nativity, apparently " chaffed " him with a raillery 
that was to me quite unintelligible. Yet I noticed that 
when, at sunset, he accompanied Bridget to the spring for 
water, ostentatiously flourishing the empty bucket in his 
hand, when they returned in the gloaming Bridget was 
carrying the water, and my friend the Tramp was some 
paces behind her cheerfully "colloguing," and picking 
blackberries. 

At 7 the next morning he started in cheerfully to work. 
At 9 A.M. he had placed three large stones on the first 
course in position, an hour having been spent in looking for 
a pick and hammer, and in the intervals " chaffing " with 
Bridget. At lo o'clock I went to overlook his work ; it 
was a rash action, as it caused him to respectfully doff his 
hat, discontinue his labours, and lean back against the fence 
in cheerful and easy conversation. " Are ye fond uv black- 
berries, Captain ? " I told him that the children were in 
the habit of getting them from the meadow beyond — hoping 
to estop the suggestion I knew was coming. "Ah, but 
Captain, it's meself that with wandering and havin' nothin' 
to pass me lips but the berries I'd pick from the hedges — 
it's meself knows where to find thim. Shure, it's yer childer, 
and foine boys they are. Captain, that are besaching me to 
go wid 'em to the place, knownst only to meself." It is 
unnecessary to say that he triumphed. After the manner of 
vagabonds of all degrees, he had enlisted the women and 
children on his side — and my friend the Tramp had his own 
way. He departed at ii and returned at 4 p.m. with a tin 
dinner-pail half filled. On interrogating the boys it appeared 
that they had had "a bully time," but on cross-examination 
it came out that they had picked the berries. From 4 to 6 



My Friend the Tramp, 437 

three more stones were laid, and the arduous labours of the 
day were over. As I stood looking at the first course of six 
stones, my friend the Tramp stretched his strong arms out 
to their fullest extent and said, " Ay, but it's wurruk that's 
good fur me ; gin me wurruk, and it's all I'll be askin' fur." 

I ventured to suggest that he had not yet accomplished 
much. 

" Wait till to-morror. Ah, but ye'll see thin. It's me 
hand that's yet onaisy wid brickmaking and sthrange to the 
shtones. Av ye'll wait till to-morror ? " 

Unfortunately I did not wait. An engagement took me 
away at an early hour, and when I rode up to my cottage 
at noon my eyes were greeted with the astonishing spectacle 
of my two boys hard at work laying the courses of the stone 
wall, assisted by Bridget and Norah, who were dragging 
stones from the hillsides, while comfortably stretched on the 
top of the wall lay my friend the Tramp, quietly overseeing 
the operations with lazy and humorous comment. For an 
instant I was foolishly indignant, but he soon brought me 
to my senses. " Shure, sur, it's only larnin' the boys the 
habits uv industhry I was — and may they niver know, be the 
same token, what is it to wurruk for the bread betune their 
lips. Shure it's but makin' em think it play, I was. As 
fur the colleens beyint in the kitchen, shure isn't it betther 
they was helping your honour here than colloguing with 
themselves inside ? " 

Nevertheless, I thought it expedient to forbid henceforth 
any interruption of servants or children with my friend's 
"wurruk." Perhaps it was the result of this embargo that 
the next morning early the Tramp wanted to see me. 

" And it's sorry I am to say it to ye, sur," he began, 
" but it's the handlin' of this stun that's desthroyin' me touch 
at the brickmakin', and it's better I should lave ye and 
find wurruk at me own thrade. For it's wurruk I'm nadin'. 



43 S My Friend the Tramp. 

It isn't meself, Captin, to ate the bread of oidleness here. 
And so good-bye to ye, and if it's fifty cints ye can be givin' 
me ontil I'll find a kill — it's God that'll repay ye." 

He got the money. But he got also conditionally a note 
from me to my next neighbour, a wealthy retired physician, 
possessed of a large domain — a man eminently practical 
and business-like in his management of it. He employed 
many labourers on the sterile waste he called his " farm," 
and it occurred to me that if there really was any work in 
my friend the Tramp, which my own indolence and pre- 
occupation had failed to bring out, he was the man to 
do it 

I met him a week after. It was with some embarrass- 
ment that I inquired after my friend the Tramp. "Oh, 
yes," he said reflectively, " let's see — he came Monday and 
left me Thursday. He was, I think, a stout, strong man, 
a well-meaning, good-humoured fellow, but afflicted with a 
most singular variety of diseases. The first day I put him 
at work in the stables he developed chills and fever caught 
in the swamps of Louisiana" 

" Excuse me," I said hurriedly — " you mean in Mil- 
waukee ! " 

"I know what I'm talking about," returned the doctor 
testily ; " he told me his whole wretched story ; his escape 
from the Confederate service; the attack upon him by 
armed negroes ; his concealment in the bayous and 
swamps " 

" Go on, doctor," I said feebly ; " you were speaking 
of his work." 

"Yes — well his system was full of malaria; the first day 
I had him wrapped up in blankets and dosed with quinine. 
The next day he was taken with all the symptoms of 
cholera morbus, and I had to keep him up on brandy and 
capsicum. Rheumatism set in on the following day and 



My Friend the Tramp. 439 

incapacitated him for work, and I concluded I had better 
give him a note to the director of the City Hospital than 
keep him here. As a pathological study he was good, but 
as I was looking for a man to help about the stable I 
couldn't afford to keep him in both capacities." 

As I never could really tell when the doctor was in joke 
or in earnest I dropped the subject. And so my friend 
the Tramp gradually faded from my memory, not, however, 
without leaving behind him in the barn, where he had 
slept, a lingering flavour of whisky, onions, and fluffiness. 
But in two weeks this had gone, and the " Shebang " (as 
my friends irreverently termed my habitation) knew him no 
more. Yet it was pleasant to think of him as having at 
last found a job at brickmaking, or having returned to his 
family at Milwaukee, or making his Louisiana home once 
more happy with his presence, or again tempting the fish- 
producing main — this time with a noble and equitable 
captain. 

It was a lovely August morning when I rode across the 
sandy peninsula to visit a certain noted family, whereof all 
the sons were valiant and the daughters beautiful. The 
front of the house was deserted, but on the rear veranda 
I heard the rustle of gowns, and above it arose what seemed 
to be the voice of Ulysses, reciting his wanderings. There 
was no mistaking that voice — it was my friend the Tramp ! 

From what I could hastily gather from his speech, he 
had walked from St. John, N. B., to rejoin a distressed wife 
in New York, who was, however, living with opulent but 
objectionable relatives. "An' shure, miss, I wouldn't be 
asking ye the loan of a cint if I could get wurruk at me 
trade of carpet- wavin' — and maybe ye know of some manu- 
facthory where they wave carpets beyant here. Ah, miss, 
and if ye don't give me a cint, it's enough for the loikes of 
me to know that me troubles has brought the tears in the 



440 My Friend the Tramp, 

most beautiful oiyes in the wurruld, and God bless ye for 
it, miss ! " 

Now I knew that the Most Beautiful Eyes in the World 
belonged to one of the most sympathetic and tenderest 
hearts in the world, and I felt that common justice de- 
manded my interference between it and one of the biggest 
scamps in the world. So, without waiting to be announced 
by the servant, I opened the door and joined the group on 
the veranda. 

If I expected to touch the conscience of my friend the 
Tramp by a dramatic entrance, I failed utterly ! For no 
sooner did he see me than he instantly gave vent to a howl 
of delight, and, falling on his knees before me, grasped my 
hand and turned oratorically to the ladies. 

" Oh, but it's himself — himself that has come as a witness 
to me charackther ! oh, but it's himself that lifted me four 
wakes ago, when I was lyin' with a mortal wakeness on the 
say-coast and tuk me to his house. Oh, but it's himself that 
shupported me over the faldes, and whin the chills and faver 
came on me and I shivered wid the cold, it was himself, 
God bless him, as sthripped the coat off his back, and giv 
it me, sayin', ' Tak it, Dinnis, it's shtarved with the cowld 
say air, ye'll be entoirly.' Ah, but look at him — will ye, 
miss ! Look at his swate, modist face — a-blushin' like your 
own, miss. Ah ! look at him, will ye ? He'll be denyin' of 
it in a minit — may the blessin' uv God folly him. Look at 
him, miss ! Ah, but it's a swate pairye'd make ! — (the rascal 
knew I was a married man). Ah, miss, if ye could see him 
wroightin' day and night with such an illigant hand of his 
own — (he had evidently believed from the gossip of my 
servants that I was a professor of chirography) — if ye could* 
see him, miss, as I have, ye'd be proud of him." 

He stopped out of breath. I was so completely astounded 
I could say nothing ; the tremendous indictment I had framed 



My Friend the Tramp. 44 1 

to utter as I opened the door vanished completely. And as 
the Most Beautiful Eyes in the Wurruld turned gratefully to 
mine — well — 

I still retained enough principle to ask the ladies to with- 
draw, while I would take upon myself the duty of examining 
into the case of my friend the Tramp and giving him such 
relief as was required. (I did not know until afterward, how- 
ever, that the rascal had already despoiled their scant purses 
of $3.50.) When the door was closed upon them 1 turned 
upon him. 

" You infernal rascal ! " 

"Ah, Captin, and would ye be refusin' me a carrakther 
and me givin ye such a one as Oi did ? God save us ! but 
if ye'd hav' seen the luk that the purty one give me. Well, 
before the chills and faver bruk me spirits entirely, when I 
was a young man, and makin' me tin dollars a week brick- 
makin', it's meself that wud hav given " 

" I consider," I broke in, " that a dollar is a fair price for 
your story, and as I shall have to take it all back and expose 
you before the next twenty-four hours pass, I think you had 
better hasten to Milwaukee, New York, or Louisiana." 

I handed him the dollar. " Mind, I don't want to see 
your face again." 

" Ye wun't, Captin." 

And I did not. 

But it so chanced that later in the season, when the 
migratory inhabitants had flown to their hot-air registers in 
Boston and Providence, I breakfasted with one who had 
lingered. It was a certain Boston lawyer — replete with prin- 
ciple, honesty, self-discipHne, statistics, aesthetics, and a per- 
fect consciousness of possessing all these virtues, and a full 
recognition of their market values. I think he tolerated me 
as a kind of foreigner, gently but firmly waiving all argument 
on any topic, frequently distrusting my facts, generally my 



» 



44 2 My Friend the Tramp. 

deductions, and always my ideas. In conversation he always 
appeared to descend only half-way down a long moral and 
intellectual staircase, and always delivered his conclusions 
over the balusters. 

I had been speaking of ray friend the Tramp. " There 
is but one way of treating that class of impostors ; it is simply 
to recognise the fact that the law calls him a 'vagrant/ 
and makes his trade a misdemeanour. Any sentiment on 
the other side renders yo\i particeps criminis. I don't know 
but an action would lie against you for encouraging tramps. 
Now, I have an efficacious way of dealing with these gentry." 
He rose and took a double-barrelled fowling-piece from the 
chimney. " When a tramp appears on my property I warn 
him off. If he persists I fire on him — as I would on any 
criminal trespasser." 

" Fire on him ? " I echoed in alarm. 

" Yes — but with powdei' only ! Of course he doesn't know 
that. But he doesn't come back." 

It struck me for the first time that possibly many other of 
my friend's arguments might be only blank cartridges, and 
used to frighten off other trespassing intellects. 

"Of course, if the Tramp still persisted I would be justi- 
fied in using shot. Last evening I had a visit from one. 
He was coming over the wall. My shotgun was efficacious : 
you should have seen him run ! " 

It was useless to argue with so positive a mind and I 
dropped the subject. After breakfast I strolled over the 
downs, my friend promising to join me as soon as he had 
arranged some household business. 

It was a lovely, peaceful morning, not unlike the day when 
I first met my friend the Tramp. The hush of a great Bene- 
diction lay on land and sea. A few white sails twinkled afar, 
but sleepily — one or two large ships were creeping in lazily — 
like my friend the Tramp. A voice behind me starded me. 



My Friend the Tramp. 443 

My host had rejoined me. His face, however, looked a 
little troubled. 

" I just now learned something of importance," he began ; 
'* it appears that with all my precautions that Tramp has 
visited my kitchen and the servants have entertained him. 
Yesterday morning, it appears, while I was absent he had 
the audacity to borrow my gun to go duck shooting. At the 
end of two or three hours he returned with two ducks and — 
the gun." 

"That was, at least, honest." 

« Yes — but ! That fool of a girl says that, as he handed 
back the gun, he told her it was all right, and that he had 
loaded it up again to save the master trouble." 

I think I showed my concern in my face, for he added 
hastily, " It was only duck shot — a few wouldn't hurt 
him ! " 

Nevertheless we both walked on in silence for a moment. 

**I thought the gun kicked a Httle," he said at last 
musingly ; " but the idea of — Hallo ! what's this ? " 

He had stopped before the hollow where I had first seen 
my Tramp. It was deserted, but on the mosses there were 
spots of blood and fragments of an old gown, bloodstained, 
as if used for bandages. I looked at it closely ; it was the 
gown intended for the consumptive wife of my friend the 
Tramp. 

But my host was already nervously tracking the blood- 
stains that on rock, moss, and boulder were steadily lead- 
ing toward the sea. When I overtook him at last on the 
shore, he was standing before a flat rock, on which lay a 
bundle I recognised, tied up in a handkerchief, and a 
crooked grape vine stick. 

" He may have come here to wash his wounds — salt is a 
styptic," said my host, who had recovered his correct pre- 
cision of statement. 



444 -K^' P^f'i^^Ji^^ ^^^'^' Tramp. 

I said nothing, but looked to^Ya^d the sea. Whatever 
secret lay hid in its breast, it kept it fast. Whatever its 
calm eyes had seen that summer night, it gave no reflection 
now. It lay there passive, imperturbable, and reticent 
But my friend the Tramp was goi^e ! 



( 445 ) 



r 



It was in a Pullman sleeping-car on a Western road. 
After that first plunge into unconsciousness which the 
weary traveller takes on getting into his berth, I awakened 
to the dreadful revelation that I had been asleep only two 
hours. The greater part of a long vinter night was before 
me to face with staring eyes. 

Finding it impossible to sleep, I lay there wondering a 
number of things : why, for instance, the Pullman sleeping 
car blankets were unlike other blankets ; why they were 
like squares cut out of cold buckwheat cakes, and why they 
clung to you when you turned over, and lay heavy on you 
without warmth ; why the curtains before you could not 
have been made opaque, without being so thick and suf- 
focating ; why it would not be as well to sit up all night 
half asleep in an ordinary passenger car as to lie awake 
all night in a Pullman ? But the snoring of my fellow- 
passengers answered this question in the negative. 

With the recollection of last night's dinner weighing on 
me as heavily and coldly as the blankets, I began wonder- 
ing why, over the whole extent of the continent, there was 
no local dish ; why the bill of fare at restaurant and hotel 
was invariably only a weak reflex of the metropolitan 
hostelries; why the entrees were always the same, only 
more or less badly cooked ; why the travelling American 
always was supposed to demand turkey and cold cranberry 



44 6 -^ Sleeping-Car Experience, 

sauce ; why the pretty waiter girl apparently shuffled your 
plates behind your back, and then dealt them over your 
shoulder in a semicircle, as if they were a hand at cards, 
and not always a good one ? Why, having done this, she 
instantly retired to the nearest wall, and gazed at you 
scornfully, as one who would say, " Fair sir, though lowly, 
I am proud ; if dost imagine that I would permit undue 
familiarity of speech, beware ! " And then I began to think 
of and dread the coming breakfast ; to wonder why the 
ham was always cut half an inch thick, and why the fried 
egg always resembled a glass eye that visibly winked at you 
with diabolical dyspeptic suggestions; to wonder if the 
buckwheat cakes, the eating of which requires a certain 
degree of artistic preparation and deliberation, would be 
brought in as usual one minute before the train started. 
And then I had a vivid recollection of a fellow-passenger 
who, at a certain breakfast station in Illinois, frantically 
enwrapped his portion of this national pastry in his red 
bandanna handkerchief, took it into the smoking car, and 
quietly devoured it en route. 

Lying broad awake, I could not help making some 
observations which I think are not noticed by the day 
traveller. First, that the speed of a train is not equal or 
continuous. That at certain times the engine apparently 
starts up, and says to the baggage train behind it, " Come, 
come, this won't do ! Why, it's nearly half-past two ; how 
in h — 11 shall we get through ? Don't you talk to 77ie. 
Pooh ! pooh ! " delivered in that rhythmical fashion which 
all meditation assumes on a railway train. Exempli gratia : 
One night, having raised my window curtain to look over a 
moonlit snowy landscape, as I pulled it down the lines of 
a popular comic song flashed across me. Fatal error! 
The train instantly took it up, and during the rest of the 
night I was haunted by this awful refrain : " Pull down the 



A Sleeping-Car Experie^ice. 447 

bel-lind, pull down the bel-lind ; somebody's klink klink. 
Oh don't be shoo-shoo ! " Naturally this differs on the 
different railways. On the New York Central, where the 
road bed is quite perfect and the steel rails continuous, I 
have heard this irreverent train give the words of a certain 
popular revival hymn after this fashion : " Hold the fort, 
for I am Sankey, Moody slingers still, wave the swish 
swosh back from klinky, klinky klanky kill." On the New 
York and New Haven, where there are many switches, and 
the engine whistles at every cross-road, I have often heard, 
" Tommy, make room for your whoopy ! that's a little clang, 
bumpity bumpity boopy, clikitty, clikitty clang." Poetry, 
I fear, fared little better. One starlit night, coming from 
Quebec, as we slipped by a virgin forest, the opening lines 
of Evangeline flashed upon me. But all I could make of 
them was this : " This is the forest prim-eval-eval ; the 
groves of the pines and the hem-locks-locks-locks-locks- 
loooock ! " The train was only "slowing "or "braking" 
up at a station. Hence the jar in the metre. 

I had noticed a peculiar ^olian harp-like cry that ran 
through the whole train as we settled to rest at last after a 
long run — an almost sight of infinite relief, a musical sigh 
that began in C and ran gradually up to F natural, which 
I think most observant travellers have noticed day and 
night. No railway official has ever given me a satisfactory 
explanation of it. As the car, in a rapid run, is always 
slightly projected forward of its trucks, a practical friend 
once suggested to me that it was the gradual settling back 
of the car body to a state of inertia, which, of course, every 
poetical traveller would reject. Four o'clock — the souiid 
of boot-blacking by the porter faintly apparent from the 
toilet room. Why not talk to him ? But, fortunately, I 
remembered that any attempt at extended conversation 
with conductor or porter was always resented by them as 



44 8 A Sleeping-Car Experience, 

implied disloyalty to the company they represented. I 
recalled that once I had endeavoured to impress upon a 
conductor the absolute folly of a midnight mspection of 
tickets, and had been treated by him as an escaped lunatic. 
No, there was no relief from this suffocating and insupport- 
able loneliness to be gained then. I raised the window 
blind and looked out. We were passing a farmhouse. A 
light, evidently the lantern of a farm hand, was swung 
beside a barn. Yes, the faintest tinge of rose in the far 
horizon. Morning, surely, at last. 

We had stopped at a station. Two men had got into 
the car and had taken seats in the one vacant section, 
yawning occasionally, and conversing in a languid, perfunc- 
tory sort of way. They sat opposite each other, occasionally 
looking out of the window, but always giving the stray , 
impression that they were tired of each other's company. 
As I looked out of my curtains at them, the One Man said 
with a feebly concealed yawn — 

"Yes, well, I reckon he was at one time as popler an' 
ondertaker ez I knew." 

The Other Man (inventing a question rather than giving 
an answer, out of some languid social impulse. — But was 
he — this yer ondertaker — a Christian — hed he jined the 
church ? 

The One Man (reflectively). — Well, I don't know ez you 
might call him a purfessin' Christian ; but he hed — yes, he 
hed conviction. I think Dr. Wylie hed him under convic- 
tion. Et least that was the way I got it from him. 

A long, dreary pause. The Other Man (feeling it was 
incumbent on him to say something). — But why was he 
popler ez an ondertaker ? 

The One Man (lazily). — Well, he was kinder popler with 
widders and widderers — sorter soothen 'em a kinder keerless 
way ; slung 'em suthin' here and there, sometimes outer the 



A Sleeping-Car Experience, 449 

Book, sometimes outer himself, ez a man of experience az 
hed hed sorror. Hed, they say ({dery cautiously)^ lost three 
wives hisself, and five children by this yer new disease — 
dipthery — out in Wisconsin. I don't know the facts, but 
that's what got round. 

The Other Man. — But how did he lose his poplarity? 

The One Man. — Well, that's the question. You see he 
introduced some things into ondertaking that waz new. He 
hed, for instance, a way, as he called it, of manniperlating 
the features of the deceased. 
■ Th^ Other Man (quietly). — How manniperlating? 

The One Man (struck with a bright and aggressive 
thought). — Look yer, did ye ever notiss how, generally 
speakin', onhandsome a corpse is ? 

The Other Man had noticed this fact. 

The One Man (returning to his fact). — Why, there was 
Mary Peebles, ez was daughter of my wife's bosom friend — 
a mighty pooty girl and a perfessing Christian — died of 
scarlet fever. Well, that gal — I was one of the mourners, 
being my wife's friend — well, that gal, though I hedn't, 
perhaps, oughter say — lying in that casket, fetched all the 
way from some A-i establishment in Chicago, filled with 
flowers and furbelows — didn't really seem to be of much 
account. Well, although my wife's friend, and me a 
mourner — well, now, I was — disappointed and discour- 
aged. 

The Other Man (in palpably affected sympathy). — Sho ! 
now ! 

"Yes, sir I Well, you see, this yer ondertaker — this 
Wilkins — hed a way of correcting all thet. And just by 
manniperlation. He worked over the face of the deceased 
ontil he perduced what the survivin' relatives called a look 
of Resignation — you know, a sort of smile, like. When he 
wanted to put in any extrys, he produced what he called — 

VOL. III. 2 F 



450 A Sleeping-Car Experience, 

— hevin' reglar charges for this kind of work — a Christian's 
Hope." 

The Other Man. — I want to know ! 

"Yes. Well, I admit, at times it was a little startlin'. 
And I've allers said (a little confidentially) that I hed my 
doubts of its being Scriptooral or sacred, being, ez you 
know, worms of the yearth ; and I relieved my mind to our 
pastor, but he didn't feel like interferin', ez long ez it was 
confined to church membership. But the other day, when 
Cy Dunham died — you disremember Cy Dunham ? " 

A long interval of silence. The Other Man was looking 
out of the window, and had apparently forgotten his com- 
panion completely. But as I stretched my head out of the 
curtain I saw four other heads as eagerly reached out from 
other berths to hear the conclusion of the story. One head, 
a female one, instantly disappeared on my looking around, 
but a certain tremulousness of her window curtain showed 
an unabated interest. The only two utterly disinterested 
men were the One Man and the Other Man. 

The One Man (detaching himself languidly from the 
window). — Cy Dunham ? 

"Yes, Cy never hed hed either convictions or per- 
fessions. Uster get drunk and go round with permiscous 
women. Sorter like the prodigal son, only a little more so, 
ez fur ez I kin judge from the facks ez stated to me. Well 
— Cy one day petered out down at Little Rock, and was 
sent up yer for interment. The fammerly, being proud-like, 
of course didn't spare any money on that funeral, and it 
waz — now between you and me — about ez shapely and first- 
class and prime-mess affair ez I ever saw, Wilkins hed put 
in his extrys. He hed put onto that prodigal's face the A-i 
touch — hed him fixed up with a Christian's Hope. Well — 
it waz about the turning-point, for thar waz some of the 
members and the pastor hisself thought that the line ort to 



A Sleeping- Car Experience. 451 

be drawn somewhere, and thar waz some talk at Deacon 
Tibbet's about a reg'lar conference meetin' regardin' it. 
But it wazn't thet which made him onpoplar." 

Another silence — no expression nor reflection from the 
face of the Other Man of the least desire to know what 
ultimately settled the unpopularity of»the undertaker. But 
from the curtains of the various berths several eager and 
one or two even wrathful faces, anxious for the result. 

The Other Man (lazily recurring to the lost topic). — Well, 
what made him onpoplar ? 

The One Man (quietly). — Extrys, I think — that is, I 
suppose — not knowin' (cautiously) all the facts. When 
Mrs. Widdecombe lost her husband — ^'bout two months ago 
— though she'd been through the valley of the shadder of 
death twice — this bein' her third marriage, hevin' been 
John Barker's widder 

The Other Man (with an intense expression of interest). 
—No, you're foolin' me ! 

The One Man (solemnly). — Ef I was to appear before my 
Maker to-morrow, yes ! she was the widder of Barker. 

The Other Man. — Well, I swow. 

The One Man. — Well, this widder Widdecombe, she put 
up a big funeral for the deceased. She hed Wilkins, and 
thet ondertaker just laid hisself out. Just spread himself. 
Onfortnately — perhaps fort'natly in the ways of Providence 
— one of Widdecombe's old friends, a doctor up thar in 
Chicago, comes down to the funeral. He goes up with the 
friends to look at the deceased, smilin' a peaceful sort of 
heavinly smile, and (everybody sayin' he's gone to meet his 
reward, and this yer friend turns round, short and sudden 
on the widder settin' in her pew, and kinder enjoyin', as 
wimen will, all the compliments paid the corpse, and he 
says, says he — 

" What did you say your husband died of, marm ? " 



452 A Sleeping- Car Experience, 

" Consumption," she says, wiping her eyes, poor critter ! 
— " Consumption — gallopin' consumption." 

" Consumption be d — d," sez he, bein' a profane kind 
of Chicago doctor, and not bein' ever under conviction. 
" Thet man died of strychnine. Look at thet face. Look 
at thet contortion of them facial muscles. Thet's strychnine. 
Thet's risers Sardonicus (thet's what he said ; he was always 
sorter profane)." 

" Why, doctor," says the widder, " thet — thet is his last 
smile. It's a Christian's resignation." 

" Thef be blowed ; don't tell me," sez he. " Hell is full. 

of thet kind of resignation. It's pizon. And I'll" 

Why, dern my skin, yes we are ; yes, it's Joliet. Wall, now, 
who'd hev thought we'd been nigh onto an hour. 

Two or three anxious passengers from their berths : " Say \ 
look yer, stranger ! Old Man ! What became of " 

But the One Man and the Other Man had vanished. 



( 453 ) 



Cbc S^an tofioge golie toa^ not clBaffp* 

He was a spare man, and, physically, an ill-conditioned 
man, but at first glance scarcely a seedy man. The indi- 
cations of reduced circumstances in the male of the better 
class are, I fancy, first visible in the boots and shirt, the 
boots offensively exhibiting a degree of polish inconsistent 
with their dilapidated condition, and the shirt showing an 
extent of ostentatious surface that is invariably fatal to the 
threadbare waistcoat that it partially covers. He was a pale 
man, and I fancied still paler from his black clothes. 

He handed me a note. 

It was from a certain physician ; a man of broad culture 
and broader experience ; a man who had devoted the 
greater part of his active life to the alleviation of sorrow 
and suffering ; a man who had lived up to the noble vows 
of a noble profession ; a man who locked in his honourable 
breast the secrets of a hundred families, whose face was as 
kindly, whose touch was as gentle in the wards of the great 
public hospitals as it was beside the laced curtains of the 
dying Narcissa; a man who", through long contact with 
suffering, had acquired a universal tenderness and breadth of 
kindly philosophy ; a man who, day and night, was at the 
beck and call of Anguish ; a man who never asked the 
creed, belief, moral or worldly standing of the sufferer, or 
even his ability to pay the few coins that enabled him (the 
physician) to exist and practise his calling ; in brief, a man 



454 ^^^ Man whose Yoke was not Easy, 

who so nearly lived up to the example of the Great Master 
that it seems strange I am writing of him as a doctor of 
Medicine and not of Divinity. 

The note was in pencil, characteristically brief, and ran 
thus — 

"Here is the man I spoke of. He ought to be good 
material for you." 

For a moment I sat, looking from the note to the man, 
and sounding the " dim perilous depths " of my memory for 
the meaning of this mysterious communication. The " good 
material," however, soon relieved my embarrassment by 
putting his hand on his waistcoat, coming toward me, and 
saying, "It's just here, you can feel it." 

It was not necessary for me to do so. In a flash I remem- 
bered that my medical friend had told me of a certain 
poor patient, once a soldier who, among his other trials 
and uncertainties, was afflicted with an aneurism caused by 
the buckle of his knapsack pressing upon the arch of the 
aorta. It was liable to burst at any shock or any moment. 
The poor fellow's yoke had indeed been too heavy. 

In the presence of such a tremendous possibility I think 
for an instant I felt anxious only about myself. What / 
should do; how dispose of the body; how explain the 
circumstance of his taking off; how evade the ubiquitous 
reporter and the Coroner's inquest ; how a suspicion might 
arise that I had in some way, through negligence, or for 
some dark purpose, unknown to the jury, precipitated the 
catastrophe, all flashed before me. Even the note — with 
its darkly suggestive offer of "good material" for me — 
looked diabolically significant. What might not an intelli- 
gent lawyer make of it ? 

I tore it up instantly, and with feverish courtesy begged 
hira to be seated. 

*' You don't care to feel it?" he asked a little anxiously. 



The Man whose Yoke was not Easy. 455 

"No." 

"Nor see it?" 

" No." 

He sighed, a trifle sadly, as if I had rejected the only 
favour he could bestow. I saw at once that he had been 
under frequent exhibition to the doctors, and that he was, 
perhaps, a trifle vain of this attention. This perception 
was corroborated a moment later by his producing a copy 
of a medical magazine, with the remark that on the sixth 
page I would find a full statement of his case. 

Could I serve him in any way? I asked. 

It appeared that I could. If I could help him to any 
light employment, something that did not require any 
great physical exertion or mental excitement, he would be 
thankful. But he wanted me to understand that he was not, 
strictly speaking, a poor man : that some years before the 
discovery of his fatal complaint he had taken out a life 
insurance policy for $5000, and that he had raked and 
scraped enough together to pay it up, and that he would 
not leave his wife and four children destitute. " You see," 
he added, *' if I could find some sort of light work to do, 
and kinder sled along you know — until " 

He stopped awkwardly. 

I have heard several noted actors thrill their audiences 
with a single phrase. I think I never was as honestly 
moved by any spoken word as that "until" or the pause 
that followed it. He was evidently quite unconscious of its 
effect, for as I took a seat beside him on the sofa, and 
looked more closely in his waxen face, I could see that he 
was evidently embarrassed, and would have explained him- 
self further if I had not stopped him. 

Possibly it was the dramatic idea, or possibly chance, but 
a few days afterwards, meeting a certain kind-hearted thea- 
trical manager, I asked him if he had any light employment 



I 



45 6 The Man whose Yoke was not Easy, 

for a man who was an invalid. " Can he walk ? " " Yes." 
"Stand up for fifteen minutes?" Yes." "Then I'll take 
him. He'll do for the last scene in the ' Destruction of 
Sennacherib ' — it's a tremendous thing, you know, we'll have 
2000 people on the stage." I was a trifle alarmed at the 
title and ventured to suggest (without betraying my poor 
friend's secret) that he could not actively engage in the 
" Destruction of Sennacherib," and that even the spectacle of 
it might be too much for him. " Needn't see it at all," said 
my managerial friend, " put him in front, nothing to do but 
march in and march out, and dodge curtain." 

He was engaged. I admit I was at times haunted by 
grave doubts as to whether I should not have informed the 
manager of his physical condition, and the possibility that 
he might some evening perpetrate a real tragedy on the 
mimic stage, but on the first performance of " The 
Destruction of Sennacherib," which I conscientiously 
attended, I was somewhat relieved. I had often been 
amused with the placid way in which the chorus in the 
opera invariably received the most astounding information, 
and witnessed the most appalling tragedies by poison or 
the block without anything more than a vocal protest or 
command always delivered to the audience, and never to 
the actors, but I think my poor friend's utter impassiveness 
to the wild carnage and the terrible exhibitions of incen- 
diarism that were going on around him transcended even 
that. Dressed in a costume that seemed to be the very 
soul of anachronism, he stood a little outside the proscenium, 
holding a spear, the other hand pressed apparently upon 
the secret within his breast, calmly surveying, with his waxen 
face, the gay auditorium. I could not help thinking that 
there was a certain pride visible even in his placid features, 
as of one who was conscious that at any moment he might 
change this simulated catastrophe into real terror. I could 



The Man whose Yoke was not Easy, 457 

not help saying this to the doctor, who was with me. 
"Yes," he said, with professional exactitude, "when it 
happens he'll throw his arms up above his head, utter an 
ejaculation, and fall forward on his face — it's a singular 
thing, they always fall forward on their face — and they'll 
pick up the man as dead as Julius Caesar." 

After that, I used to go night after night, with a certain 
hideous fascination ; but, while it will be remembered the 
"Destruction of Sennacherib" had a tremendous run, it 
will also be remembered that not a single life was really 
lost during its representation. 

It was only a few weeks after this modest first appearance 
on the boards of " The Man with an Aneurism " that, 
happening to be at a dinner party of practical business men, 
I sought to interest them with the details of the above story, 
delivered with such skill and pathos as I could command. 
I regret to say that, as a pathetic story, it for a moment 
seemed to be a dead failure. At last a prominent banker 
sitting next to me turned to me with the awful question, 
" Why don't your friend try to realise on his hfe insurance ?" 
I begged his pardon ; I didn't quite understand. "Oh, dis- 
count, sell out. Look here — (after a pause). Let him 
assign his policy to me — it's not much of a risk, on your 
statement. Well — I'll give him his five thousand dollars, 
clear." 

And he did. Under the advice of this cool-headed — I 
think I may add warmhearted — banker, " The Man with 
an Aneurism " invested his money in the name of and for 
the benefit of his wife in certain securities that paid him a 
small but regular stipend. But he still continued upon the 
boards of the theatre. 

By reason of some business engagements that called me 
away from the city, I did not see my friend the physician 
for three months afterward. When I did I asked tidings 



L 



45 S The Ma 71 whose Yoke was not Easy. 

of the Man with the Aneurism. The doctor's kind face 
grew sad. "I'm afraid — that is, I don't exactly know 
whether I've good news or bad. Did you ever see his 
wife?" 

I never had. 

*' Well, she was younger than he, and rather attractive, 
one of those doll-faced women. You remember, he settled 
that life insurance policy on her and the children ; she 
might have waited. She didn't. The other day she eloped 
with some fellow, I don't remember his name, with the 
children and the five thousand dollars." 

" And the shock killed him," I said, with poetic prompti- 
tude. 

" No — that is — not yet ; I saw him yesterday," said the 
doctor, with conscientious professional precision, looking 
over his hst of calls. 

" Well, where is the poor fellow now ? " 

*' He's still at the theatre. James, if these powders are 
called for, you'll find them here in this envelope. Tell 
Mrs. Blank I'll be there at seven — and she can give the 
baby this until I come. Say there's no danger. These 
women are an awful bother ! Yes, he's at the theatre yet. 
Which way are you going ? Down town ? Why can't you 
step into my carriage, and I'll give you a lift, and we'll talk. 
on the way down ? Well — he's at the theatre yet. And — 
and — do you remember the ' Destruction of Sennacherib ' ? 
No ? Yes you do. You remember that woman in pink, 
who pirouetted in the famous ballet scene ! You don't ? 
Why yes, you do ! Well, I imagine, of course I don't 
know — it's only a summary diagnosis, but I imagine that 
our friend with the aneurism has attached himself to her." 

" Doctor, you horrify me." 

" There are more things, Mr. Poet, in heaven and earth 
than are yet dreamt of in your philosophy. Listen. My 



The Mail whose Yoke was not Easy. 459 

diagnosis may be wrong, but that woman called the other 
day at my office to ask about him, his health, and general 
condition. I told her the truth — and ^q fainted. It was 
about as dead a faint as I ever saw ; I was nearly an hour 
in bringing her out of it. Of course it was the heat of the 
room, her exertions the preceding week, and I prescribed 
for her. Queer, wasn't it ? Now, if I were a writer, and 
had your faculty, I'd make something of that." 

" But how is his general health ? " 

"Oh, about the same. He -can't evade what will come, 
you know, at any moment He was up here the other day. 
Why the pulsation was as plain —why the entire arch of 
the aorta — What, you get out here ? Good-bye." 

Of course no moralist, no man writing for a sensitive 
and strictly virtuous public, could further interest himself 
in this man. So I dismissed him at once from my mind, 
and returned to the literary contemplation of virtue that 
was clearly and positively defined, and of Sin that invariably 
commenced with a capital letter. That this man, in his 
awful condition, hovering on the verge of eternity, should 
allow himself to be attracted by — but it was horrible to 
contemplate. 

Nevertheless, a month afterward I was returning from a 
festivity with my intimate friend Smith, my distinguished 
friend Jobling, my most respectable friend Robinson, and 
my wittiest friend Jones. It was a clear, starlit morning, 
and we seemed to hold the broad, beautiful avenue to our- 
selves, and I fear we acted as if it were so. As we hilariously 
passed the corner of Eighteenth Street, a coupe rolled by, and 
I suddenly heard my name called from its gloomy depths. 

" I beg your pardon," said the doctor, as the driver drew 
up on the sidewalk, *' but I've some news for you. I've 

just been to see our poor friend . Of course I was too 

late. He was gone in a flash." 



460 The Man w/iose Voir :cu7s not Easy. 

'' What, dead ? " 

"As Pharaoh! In an instant, just as I said. You see 
the rupture took place in the descending arch of" 

*' But, doctor ! " 

" It's a queer story. Am I keeping you from your friends ? 
No? Well, you see she— that woman I spoke of— had 
written a note to him based on what I had told her. He 
got it, and dropped in his dressing room, dead as a herring." 

" How could she have been so cruel, knowing his con- 
dition ; she might, with woman's tact, have rejected him less 
abruptly.'' 

" Yes, but you're all wrong. By Jove she accepts him ! 
— was willing to marry him ! " 

**WTiat?'' 

" Yes— don't you see ? It was joy that killed him. Gad, 
we never thought of that! Queer, ain't it. See here,' 
don't you think you might make a story out of it?" 

" But, doctor, it hasn't got any moral." 

"Humph! That's so. Good morning. Drive on, John." 



( 4^1 ) 



I 



Cfie OfCce-geefeer^ 



He asked me if I had ever seen the " Remus Sentinel" 

I replied that I had not, and would have added that I 
did not even know where Remus was, when he continued 
by saying it was strange the hotel proprietor did not keep 
the " Sentinel " on his files, and that he himself should write 
to the editor about it He would not have spoken about 
it, but he himself had been a humble member of the 
profession to which I belonged, and had often written for 
its columns. Some friends of his — partial, no doubt — had 
said that his style somewhat resembled Junius's ; but of 
course, you know — well, what he could say was that in the 
last campaign his articles were widely sought for. He did 
not know but he had a copy of one. Here his hand dived 
I into the breast-pocket of his coat, with a certain deftness 
' that indicated long habit, and after depositing on his lap a 
I bundle of well-worn documents, every one of which was 
glaringly suggestive of certificates and signatures, he con- 
cluded he had left it in his trunL 

I breathed more freely. We were sitting in the rotunda 
of a famous Washington hotel, and only a few moments 
before had the speaker, an utter stranger to me, moved his 
chair beside mine and opened a conversation. I noticed 
that he had that timid, lonely, helpless air which invests the 
bucolic traveller who, for the first time, finds himself among 
strangers, and his identity lost, in a world so much larger, 



462 The Office- Seeker. 

so much colder, so much more indifferent to him than he 
ever imagined. Indeed, I think that what we often attribute 
to the impertinent familiarity of countrymen and rustic 
travellers on railways or in cities is largely due to their 
awful loneliness and nostalgia. I remember to have once 
met in a smoking-car on a Kansas railway one of these 
lonely ones, who, after plying me with a thousand useless 
questions, finally elicited the fact that I knew slightly a 
man who had once dwelt in his native town in lUinois. 
During the rest of our journey the conversation turned 
chiefly upon this fellow-townsman, whom it afterwards 
appeared that my Illinois friend knew no better than I did. 
But he had established a link between himself and his far- 
off home through me, and was happy. 

While this was passing through my mind I took a fair 
look at him. He was a spare young fellow, not more than 
thirty, with sandy hair and eyebrows, and eyelashes so white 
as to be almost imperceptible. He was dressed in black, 
somewhat to the " rearward o' the fashion," and I had an 
odd idea that it had been his wedding suit, and it after- 
wards appeared I was right. His manner had the precision 
and much of the dogmatism of the country schoolmaster, 
accustomed to wrestle with the feeblest intellects. From 
his history, which he presently gave me, it appeared I was 
right here also. 

He was born and bred in a Western State, and, as 
schoolmaster of Remus and Clerk of Supervisors, had 
married one of his scholars, the daughter of a clergyman, 
and a man of some little property. He had attracted some 
attention by his powers of declamation, and was one of the 
principal members of the Remus Debating Society. The 
various questions then agitating Remus — " Is the doctrine of 
immortality consistent with an agricultural life ? " and, " Are 
round dances morally wrong ? " — afforded him an oppor- 



The Office-Seeker. 463 

tunity of bringing himself prominently before the country 
people. Perhaps I might have seen an extract copied from 
the "Remus Sentinel" in the *' Christian Recorder" of 
May 7, 1875? No? He would get it for me. He had 
taken an active part in the last campaign. He did not 
like to say it, but it had been universally acknowledged 
that he had elected Gashwiler. 

Who? 

Gen. Pratt C. Gashwiler, member of Congress from our 
deestrict. 

Oh! 

A powerful man, sir — a very powerful man; a man whose 
influence will presently be felt here, sir — here/ Well, he 
had come on with Gashwiler, and — well, he did not know 
why — Gashwiler did not know why he should not, you know 
(a feeble, half-apologetic laugh here), receive that reward, 
you know, for these services which, &c., &c. 

I asked him if he had any particular or definite office in 
view. 

Well, no. He had left that to Gashwiler. Gashwiler 
had said — he remembered his very words : " Leave it all 
to me ; I'll look through the different departments, and see 
what can be done for a man of your talents." 

And— 

He's looking. I'm expecting him back here every 
minute. He's gone over to the Department of Tape to see 
what can be done there. Ah ! here he comes. 

A large man approached us. He was very heavy, very 
unwieldy, very unctuous and oppressive. He affected the 
"honest farmer," but so badly that the poorest husband- 
man would have resented it. There was a suggestion of a 
cheap lawyer about him that would have justified any self- 
respecting judge in throwing him over the bar at once. 
There was a military suspicion about him that would have 



464 The Office-Seeker. 

entitled him to a court-martial on the spot. There was an 
introduction, from which I learned that my office-seeking 
friend's name was Expectant Dobbs. And then Gashwiler 
addressed me : — 

" Our young friend here is waiting, waiting. Waiting, I 
may say, on the affairs of State. Youth," continued the 
Hon. Mr. Gashwiler, addressing an imaginary constituency, 
" is nothing but a season of waiting — of preparation — ha, 
ha!" 

As he laid his hand in a fatherly manner — a fatherly 
manner that was as much of a sham as anything else about 
him — I don't know whether I was more incensed at him or 
his victim, who received it with evident pride and satis- 
faction. Nevertheless he ventured to falter out : — 

" Has anything been done yet ? " 

*' Well, no ; I can't say that anything — that is, that any- 
thing has been completed ; but I may say we are in excellent 
position for an advance — ha, ha ! But we must wait, my 
young friend, wait. What is it the Latin philosopher says ? 
* Let us by all means hasten slowly ' — ha, ha ! " and he 
turned to me as if saying confidentially, "Observe the 
impatience of these boys ! " "I met, a moment ago, my 
old friend and boyhood's companion, Jim M'Glasher, chief 
of the Bureau for the Dissemination of Useless Information, 
and," lowering his voice to a mysterious but audible whisper, 
"I shall see him again to-morrow." 

The " All aboard ! " of the railway omnibus at this 
moment tore me from the presence of this gifted legislator 
and his protege ; but as we drove away I saw through the 
open window the powerful mind of Gashwiler operating, so 
to speak, upon the susceptibilities of Mr. Dobbs. 

I did not meet him again for a week. The morning of 
my return I saw the two conversing together in the hall, 
but with the palpable distinction between this and their 



The Office-Seeker. 465 

former interviews, that the gifted Gashwiler seemed to be 
anxious to get away from his friend. I heard him say 
something about " committees " and " to-morrow," and 
when Dobbs turned his freckled face toward me I saw that 
he had got at last some expression into it — disappointment. 

I asked him pleasantly how he was getting on. 

He had not lost his pride yet. He was doing well, 
although such was the value set upon his friend Gashwiler's 
abilities by his brother members that he was almost always 
occupied with committee business. I noticed that his 
clothes were not in as good case as before, and he told me 
that he had left the hotel, and taken lodgings in a by-street, 
where it was less expensive. Temporarily, of course. 

A few days after this I had business in one of the great 
departments. From the various signs over the doors of its 
various offices and bureaus it always oddly reminded me of 
Stewart's or Arnold and Constable's. You could get pen- 
sions, patents, and plants. You could get land and the 
seeds to put in it, and the Indians to prowl round it, and 
what not. There was a perpetual clanging of office desk 
bells, and a running hither and thither of messengers strongly 
suggestive of " Cash 47." 

As my business was with the manager of this Great 
National Fancy Shop, I managed to push by the sad-eyed, 
eager-faced crowd of men and women in the anteroom, and 
entered the secretary's room, conscious of having left behind 
me a great deal of envy and uncharitableness of spirit. As 
I opened the door I heard a monotonous flow of Western 
speech which I thought I recognised. There was no mis- 
taking it. It was the voice of the Gashwiler. 

" The appointment of this man, Mr. Secretary, would be 
most acceptable to the people in my deestrict. His family 
are wealthy and influential, and it's just as well in the fall 
elections to have the supervisors and county judge pledged 

VOL. III. 2 G 



466 The Office-Seeker, 

to support the administration. Our delegates to the State 
Central Committee are to a man " — but here, perceiving 
from the wandering eye of Mr. Secretary that there was 
another man in the room, he whispered the rest with a 
familiarity that must have required all the politician in the 
official's breast to keep from resenting. 

*' You have some papers, I suppose ? " asked the secretary 
wearily. 

Gashwiler was provided with a pocketful, and produced 
them. The secretary threw them on the table among the 
other papers, where they seemed instantly to lose their 
identity, and looked as if they were ready to recommend 
anybody but the person they belonged to. Indeed, in 
one corner the entire Massachusetts delegation, with the 
Supreme Bench at their head, appeared to be earnestly 
advocating the manuring of Iowa waste lands ; and to the 
inexperienced eye, a noted female reformer had apparently 
appended her signature to a request for a pension for 
wounds received in battle. 

" By the way," said the secretary, " I think I have a 
letter here from somebody in your district asking an appoint- 
ment, and referring to you ? Do you withdraw it ? " 

"If anybody has been presuming to speculate upon 
my patronage," said the Hon. Mr. Gashwiler with rising 
rage. 

" I've got the letter somewhere here," said the secretary, 
looking dazedly at his table. He made a feeble movement 
among the papers, and then sank back hopelessly in his 
chair, and gazed out of the window as if he thought and 
rather hoped it might have flown away. " It was from a Mr. 
Globbs, or Gobbs, or Dobbs, of Remus," he said finally, 
after a superhuman effort of memory. 

"Oh, that's nothing — a foolish fellow who has been 
boring me for the last month." 



The Office-Seeker. 467 

"Then I am to understand that this application is 
withdrawn ? " 

" As far as my patronage is concerned, certainly. In fact, 
such an appointment would not express the sentiments — 
indeed, I may say, would be calculated to raise active 
opposition in the deestrict." 

The secretary uttered a sigh of relief, and the gifted Gash- 
wiler passed out. I tried to get a good look at the honour- 
able scamp's eye, but he evidently did not recognise me. 

It was a question in my mind whether I ought not to 
expose the treachery of Dobbs's friend, but the next time I 
met Dobbs he was in such good spirits that I forebore. It 
appeared that his wife had written to him that she had 
discovered a second cousin in the person of the Assistant 
Superintendent of the Envelope Flap Moistening Bureau of 
the Department of Tape, and had asked his assistance ; and 
Dobbs had seen him, and he had promised it. *' You see," 
said Dobbs, " in the performance of his duties he is often 
very near the person of the secretary, frequently in the next 
room, and he is a powerful man, sir — a powerful man to 
know, sir — a very powerful man." 

How long this continued I do not remember. Long 
enough, however, for Dobbs to become quite seedy, for the 
giving up of wrist-cuffs, for the neglect of shoes and beard, 
and for great hollows to form round his eyes, and a slight 
flush on his cheek-bones. I remember meeting him in all 
the departments, writing letters or waiting patiently in ante- 
rooms from morning till night. He had lost all his old 
dogmatism, but not his pride. " I might as well be here 
as anywhere, while I'm waiting," he said, "and then I'm 
getting some knowledge of the details of official life." 

In the face of this mystery I was surprised at finding a 
note from him one day, inviting me to dine with him at 
a certain famous restaurant. I had scarce got over my 



468 The Office- Seeker. 

amazement, when the writer himself overtook me at my 
hotel. For a moment I scarcely recognised him. A new 
suit of fashionably-cut clothes had changed him without, 
however, entirely concealing his rustic angularity of figure 
and outline. He even affected a fashionable dilettante air, 
but so mildly and so innocently that it was not offensive. 

" You see," he began, explanatory-wise, " I've just found 
out the way to do it. None of these big fellows, these 
cabinet officers, know me except as an applicant. Now, 
the way to do this thing is to meet 'em fust sociably ; wine 
'em and dine 'em. Why, sir " — he dropped into the school- 
master again here — " I had two cabinet ministers, two judges, 
and a general at my table last night." 

" Owyoiir invitation ? " 

" Dear, no ! all I did was to pay for it Tom Soufflet 
gave the dinner and invited the people. Everybody knows- 
Tom. You see, a friend of mine put me up to it, and said 
that Soufflet had fixed up no end of appointments and jobs 
in that way. You see, when these gentlemen get sociable 
over their wine, he says, carelessly, " By the way, there's 
So-and-so — a good fellow — wants something; give it to 
him." And the first thing you know, or they know, he gets 
a promise from them. They get a dinner — and a good one 
— and he gets an appointment." 

" But where did you get the money ? " 

"Oh" — he hesitated — "I wrote home, and Fanny's 
father raised fifteen hundred dollars some way, and sent it 
to me. I put it down to political expenses." He laughed 
a weak foolish laugh here, and added, "As the old man 
don't drink nor smoke, he'd lift his eyebrows to know how 
the money goes. But I'll make it all right when the office 
comes — and she's coming, sure pop." 

His slang fitted as poorly on him as his clothes, and his 
familiarity was worse than his former awkward shyness. But 



The Office-Seeker, 469 

I could not help asking him what had been the result of 
this expenditure. 

" Nothing just yet. But the Secretary of Tape and the 
man at the head of the Inferior Department, both spoke 
to me, and one of them said he thought he'd heard my 
name before. He might," he added with a forced laugh, 
"for I've written him fifteen letters." 

Three months passed. A heavy snowstorm stayed my 
chariot wheels on a Western railroad, ten miles from a ner- 
vous lecture committee and a waiting audience ; there was 
nothing to do but to make the attempt to reach them in a 
sleigh. But the way was long and the drifts deep ; and when 
at last four miles out we reached a little village, the driver 
declared his cattle could hold out no longer, and we must 
stop there. Bribes and threats were equally of no avail. I 
had to accept the fact. 

" What place is this ? " 

"Remus." 

" Remus, Remus," where had I heard that name before ? 
But while I was reflecting he drove up before the door of 
the tavern. It was a dismal, sleep-forbidding place, and 
only nine o'clock, and here was the long winter's night before 
me. Failing to get the landlord to give me a team to go 
farther, I resigned myself to my fate and a cigar, behind the 
redhot stove. In a few moments one of the loungers 
approached me, calling me by name, and in a rough but hearty 
fashion condoled me for my mishap, advising me to stay at 
Remus all night, and added : " The quarters ain't the best 
in the world yer at this hotel. But thar's an old man yer — 
the preacher that was — that for twenty years hez taken in 
such fellers as you and lodged 'em free gratis for nothing, and 
hez been proud to do it. The old man used to be rich ; he 
ain't so now ; sold his big house on the cross-roads, and 
lives in a little cottage with his darter right over yan. 



470 '^^^ Office-Seeker, 

But ye couldn't do him a better turn than to go over thar 
and stay, and if he thought I'd let ye go out o' Reuius with- 
out axing ye, he'd give me h— 11. Stop, I'll go with ye." 

I might at least call on the old man, and I accompanied 
my guide through the still falling snow until we reached a 
litde cottage. The door opened to my guide's knock, and 
with the brief and discomposing introduction, " Yer, ole man, 
I've brought you one of them snowbound lecturers," he left 
me on the threshold, as my host, a kindly-faced, white 
haired man of seventy, came forward to greet me. 

His frankness and simple courtesy overcame the em- 
barrassment left by my guide's introduction, and I followed 
him passively as he entered the neat but plainly-furnished 
sitting-room. At the same moment a pretty, but faded 
young woman arose from the sofa and was introduced to me 
as his daughter. " Fanny and I live here quite alone, and 
if you knew how good it was to see somebody from the 
great outside world now and then, you would not apologise 
for what you call your intrusion." 

During this speech I was vaguely trying to recall where 
and when and under what circumstances I had ever before 
seen the village, the house, the old man or his daughter. 
Was it in a dream, or in one of those dim reveries of some 
previous existence to which the spirit of mankind is sub- 
ject? I looked at them again. In the careworn lines 
around the once pretty girlish mouth of the young woman, 
in the furrowed seams over the forehead of the old man, 
in the ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the shelf, in the 
faint whisper of the falling snow outside, I read the legend, 
*' Patience, patience ; Wait and Hope." 

The old man filled a pipe, and offering me one, continued, 
"Although I seldom drink myself, it was my custom to 
always keep some nourishing liquor in my house for passing 
guests, but to-night I find myself without any.'' I hastened 



r 



The Office-Seeker, 



to offer him my flask, which, after a moment's coyness, he 
accepted, and presently under its benign influence at least 
ten years dropped from his shoulders, and he sat up in his 
chair erect and loquacious. 

" And how are affairs at the National Capital, sir ? " he 
began. 

Now, if there was any subject of which I was profoundly 
ignorant, it was this. But the old man was evidently bent 
on having a good political talk. So I said vaguely, yet with 
a certain sense of security, that I guessed there wasn't much 
being done. 

" I see/' said the old man, " in the matters of resumption 
of the sovereign rights of States and federal interference, you 
would imply that a certain conservative tentative policy is not 
to be promulgated until after the electoral committee have 
given their verdict." I looked for help towards the lady, 
and observed feebly that he had very clearly expressed my 
views. 

The old man, observing my looks, said, "Although my 
daughter's husband holds a federal position in Washington, 
the pressure of his business is so great that he has little 
time to give us mere gossip — I beg your pardon, did you 
speak ? " 

I had unconsciously uttered an exclamation. This, then, 
was Remus — the home of Expectant Dobbs — and these his 
wife and father ; and the Washington banquet-table, ah me ! 
had sparkled with the yearning heart's blood of this poor 
wife, and had been upheld by this tottering Caryatid of a 
father. 

" Do you know what position he has ? " 

The old man did not know positively, but thought it was 
some general supervising position. He had been assured 
t by Mr. Gashwiler that it was a first-class clerkship ; yes, a 
, y?ry/-class. 



472 . The Office- Seeker. 

I did not tell him that in this, as in many other official 
regulations in Washington, they reckoned backward, but 
said — 

"I suppose that your M. C, Mr. — Mr. Gashwiler" 

" Don't mention his name," said the little woman, rising 
to her feet hastily; "he never brought Expectant anything 
but disappointment and sorrow. I hate, I despise, the 
man." 

" Dear Fanny," expostulated the old man gently, "this is 
unchristian and unjust. Mr. Gashwiler is a powerful, a very 
powerful man ! His work is a great one ; his time is pre- 
occupied with weightier matters." 

" His time was not so preoccupied but he could make 
use of poor Expectant," said this wounded dove a little , 
spitefully. 

Nevertheless it was some satisfaction to know that Dobbs 
had at last got a place, no matter how unimportant, or who | 
had given it to him ; and when I went to bed that night in 
the room that had been evidently prepared for their con- 
jugal chamber, I felt that Dobbs's worst trials were over. 
The walls were hung with souvenirs of their antenuptial 
days. There was a portrait of Dobbs, setat 25 ; there was 
a faded bouquet in a glass case, presented by Dobbs to 
Fanny on examination-day ; there was a framed resolution 
of thanks to Dobbs from the Remus Debating Society ; 
there was a certificate of Dobbs's election as President of 
the Remus Philomathean Society; there was his commis- 
sion as Captain in the Remus Independent Contingent of 
Home Guards ; there was a Freemason's chart, in which 
Dobbs was addressed in epithets more fulsome and extrava- 
gant than any living monarch. And yet all these cheap 
glories of a narrow life and narrower brain were upheld and 
made sacred by the love of the devoted priestess who wor- 
shipped at this homely shrine, and kept the light burning 



I 



The Office-Seeker. 473 



through gloom and doubt and despair. The storm tore 
round the house, and shook its white fists in the windows. 
A dried wreath of laurel that Fanny had placed on Dobbs's 
head after his celebrated centennial address at the school- 
house, July 4, 1876, swayed in the gusts, and sent a few of 
its dead leaves down on the floor, and I lay in Dobbs's bed 
and wondered what a first-class clerkship was. 

I found out early the next summer. I was strolling through 
the long corridors of a certain great department, when I 
came upon a man accurately yoked across the shoulders, 
and supporting two huge pails of ice on either side, from 
which he was replenishing the pitchers in the various offices. 
As I passed I turned to look at him again. It was Dobbs ! 

He did not set down his burden ; it was against the rules, 
he said. But he gossiped cheerily, said he was beginning 
at the foot of the ladder, but expected soon to climb up. 
That it was Civil Service Reform, and of course he would 
be promoted soon. 

" Had Gashwiler procured the appointment ? " 

No. He believed it was me. I had told his story to 
Assistant-Secretary Blank, who had in turn related it to 
Bureau-Director Dash — both good fellows — but this was all 
they could do. Yes, it was a foothold. But he must go 
now. 

Nevertheless I followed him up and down, and, cheered 
up with a rose-coloured picture of his wife and family, and 
my visit there, and promising to come and see him the 
next time I came to Washington, I left him with his self- 
imposed yoke. 

With a new administration Civil Service Reform came 
in, crude and ill-digested, as all sudden and sweeping reforms 
must be ; cruel to the individual, as all crude reforms will 
ever be ; and among the list of helpless men and women, 
incapacitated for other work by long service in the dull 



474 ^^^^ Office-Seeker. 

routine of federal office who were decapitated, the weak, 
foolish, emaciated head of Expectant Dobbs went to the 
block. It afterward appeared that the gifted Gashwiler 
was responsible for the appointment of twenty clerks, and 
that the letter of poor Dobbs, in which he dared to refer to 
the now powerless Gashwiler, had sealed his fate. The 
country made an example of Gashwiler and — Dobbs. 

From that moment he disappeared. I looked for him 
in vain in anterooms, lobbies, and hotel corridors, and 
finally came to the conclusion that he had gone home. 

How beautiful was that July Sabbath, when the morning 
train from Baltimore rolled into the Washington depot ! 
How tenderly and chastely the morning sunlight lay on the 
east front of the Capitol until the whole building was hushed 
in a grand and awful repose ! How difficult it was to think 
of a Gashwiler creeping in and out of those enfiling columns, , 
or crawling beneath that portico, without wondering that 
yon majestic figure came not down with flat of sword to 
smite the fat rotundity of the intruder ! How difficult to 
think that parricidal hands have ever been lifted* against 
the Great Mother, typified here in the graceful white 
chastity of her garments, in the noble tranquillity of her face, 
in the gathering up her white-robed children within her 
shadow ! 

This led me to think of Dobbs, when, suddenly, a face 
flashed by my carriage window. I called to the driver to 
stop, and, looking again, saw that it was a woman standing 
bewildered and irresolute on the street corner. As she 
turned her anxious face toward me I saw that it was Mrs. 
Dobbs. 

What was she doing here, and where was Expectant ? 

She began an incoherent apology, and then burst into 
explanatory tears. When I had got her in the carriage she 
said, between her sobs, that Expectant had not returned; 



The Office-SeekeT' 475 

that she had received a letter from a friend here saying he 
was sick — oh, very, very sick — and father could not come 
with her, so she came alone. She was so frightened, so 
lonely, so miserable. 

Had she his address ? 

Yes, just here ! It was on the outskirts of Washington, 
near Georgetown. Then I would take her there, if I could, 
for she knew nobody. 

On our way I tried to cheer her up by pointing out 
some of the children of the Great Mother before alluded to, 
but she only shut her eyes as we rolled down the long 
avenues, and murmured, " Oh, these cruel, cruel distances !" 

At last we reached the locality, a negro quarter, yet 
clean and neat in appearance. I saw the poor girl shudder 
slightly as we stopped at the door of a low, two-storey frame 
house, from which the unwonted spectacle of a carriage 
brought a crowd of half-naked children and a comely, cleanly, 
kind-faced mulatto woman. 

Yes, this was the house. He was upstairs, rather poorly, 
but asleep, she thought. 

We went upstairs. In the first chaniber, clean, though 
poorly furnished, lay Dobbs. On a pine table near his bed 
were letters and memorials to the various departments, and 
on the bed-quilt, unfinished, but just as the weary fingers 
had relaxed their grasp upon it, lay a letter to the Tape 
Department. 

As we entered the room he lifted himself on his elbow. 
*' Fanny ! " he said quickly, and a shade of disappointment 
crossed his face. " I thought it was a message from the 
secretary," he added apologetically. 

The poor woman had suffered too much already to shrink 
from this last crushing blow. But she walked quietly to 
his side without a word or cry, knelt, placed her loving arms 
around him, and I left them so together. 



47^ The Office- Seeker. 

When I called again in the evening he was better; so 
much better that, against the doctor's orders, he had talked to 
her quite cheerfully and hopefully for an hour, until suddenly 
raising her bowed head in his two hands, he said, " Do you 
know, dear, that in looking for help and influence there 
was One, dear, I had forgotten ; One who is very potent 
with kings and councillors ; and I think, love, I shall ask 
Him to interest Himself in my behalf. It is not too late 
yet, darling, and I shall seek him to-morrow." 

And before the morrow came he had sought and found 
Him, and I doubt not got a good place. 



( 477 ) 



'' Once, when I was a pirate ! " 

The speaker was an elderly gentleman in correct evening 
dress, the room a tasteful one, the company of infinite 
respectability, the locality at once fashionable and exclusive, 
the occasion an unexceptionable dinner. To this should 
be added that the speaker was also the host. 

With these conditions self-evident, all that good breeding 
could do was to receive the statement with a vague smile 
that might pass for good-humoured incredulity or courteous 
acceptation of a simple fact. Indeed, I think we all rather 
tried to convey the impression that our host, when he was 
SL pirate — if he ever really was one — was all that a self- 
respecting pirate should be, and never violated the canons 
of good society. This idea was, to some extent, crystallised 
by the youngest Miss Jones in the exclamation, " Oh, how 
nice ! " 

*' It was, of course, many years ago, when I was quite a 
lad." 

We all murmured " Certainly," as if piracy were a natural 
expression of the exuberance of youth. 

" I ought, perhaps, to explain the circumstances that led 
me into this way of life." 

Here Legrande, a courteous attache of the Patagonian 
legation, interposed in French and an excess of politeness, 
"that it was not of a necessity," a statement to which his 
English neighbour hurriedly responded, " Oui^ ouV^ 



478 With the Entries. 

" There ess a boke," he continued, in a well-bred, rapid 
whisper, "from Captain Canot — a Frenchman — most een- 
teresting — he was — oh, a fine man of education — and what 
you call a ' slavair ; ' " but here he was quietly nudged into 
respectful silence. 

"I ran away from home," continued our host. He 
paused, and then added, appealingly, to the two distin- 
guished foreigners present : " I do not know if I can make 
you understand that this is a peculiarly American predilec- 
tion. The exodus of the younger males of an American 
family against the parents' wishes does not, with us, neces- 
sarily carry any obloquy with it. To the average American 
the prospect of fortune and a better condition lies outside 
of his home ; with you the home means the estate, the suc- 
cession of honours or titles, the surety that the conditions 
of life shall all be kept intact. With us the children who 
do not expect, and generally succeed in improving the 
fortunes of the house, are marked exceptions. Do I make 
myself clear ? " 

The French-Patagonian attache thought it was " charming 
and progressif," The Baron Von Pretzel thought he had 
noticed a movement of that kind in Germany, which was 
expressed in a single word of seventeen syllables. Viscount 
Piccadilly said to his neighbour : *' That, you know now, 
the younger sons, don't you see, go to Australia, you know, 
in some beastly trade — stock-raising or sheep — you know ; 
but, by Jove ! them fellahs " 

" My father always treated me well," continued our host. 
" I shared equally with my brothers the privileges and 
limitations of our New England home. Nevertheless, I 
ran away and went to sea " 

" To see — what ? " asked Legrande. 

" Alter stir mer,^^ said his neighbour hastily. 

" Go on with your piracy ! '' said Miss Jones. 



Witk the Entries, 479 

The distinguished foreigners looked at each other and 
then at Miss Jones. Each made a mental note of the 
average cold-blooded ferocity of the young American 
female. 

" I shipped on board of a Liverpool ' Hner,' " continued 
our host. 

" What ess a ' liner ' ? " interrupted Legrande, soito voce, 
to his next neighbour, who pretended not to hear him. 

" I need not say that these were the days when we had 
not lost our carrying trade, when American bottoms " 

" Qu'est ce ' bot toom ' ? " said Legrande, imploringly, to 
his other friend. 

" When American bottoms still carried the bulk of freight, 
and the supremacy of our flag " 

Here Legrande recognised a patriotic sentiment, and 
responded to it with wild republican enthusiasm, nodding 
his head violently. Piccadilly noticed it too, and, seeing 
an opening for some general discussion on free-trade, began 
half audibly to Jiis neighbour : " Most extraordinary thing, 
you know, your American statesmen " 

" I deserted the ship at Liverpool " 

But here two perfunctory listeners suddenly turned to- 
ward the other end of the table, where another guest, our 
Nevada Bonanza lion, was evidently in the full flood of 
pioneer anecdote and narration. Calmly disregarding the 
defection, he went on — 

" I deserted the ship at Liverpool in consequence of my 
ill-treatment by the second mate — a man selected for his 
position by reason of his superior physical strength and 
recognised brutality. I have been since told that he gradu- 
ated from the State prison. On the second day out I saw 
him strike a man senseless with a belaying pin for some 
trifling breach of discipline. I saw him repeatedly beat 
and kick sick men" 



480 With the Entries. 

" Did you ever read Dana's ' Two Years Before the 
Mast ' ? " asked Lightbody, our heavy literary man, turning 
to his neighbour, in a distinctly audible whisper. "Ah! 
there's a book ! Got all this sort of thing in it. Dev'lishly 
well written too." 

The Patagonian (alive for information) : " Who ess this 
Dana, eh?" 

His left-hand neighbour (shortly) : " Oh, that man ! " 

His right-hand neighbour (curtly) : '* The fellow who 
wrote the Encyclopaedia and edits the ' Sun,' that was put 
up in Boston for the English mission and didn't get it." 

The Patagonian (making a mental diplomatic note of 
the fact that the severe discipline of the editor of the * Sun,' 
one of America's profoundest scholars, while acting from 
patriotic motives, as the second mate of an American 
" bottom," had unfitted him for diplomatic service abroad) : 
''Ah, del!'' 

*' I wandered on the quays for a day or two, until I was 
picked up by a Portuguese sailor, who, interesting himself 
in my story, offered to procure me a passage to Fayal and 
Lisbon, where, he assured me, I could find more comfort- 
able and profitable means of returning to my own land. 
Let me say here that this man, although I knew him after- 
ward as one of the most unscrupulous and heartless of 
pirates — in fact, the typical buccaneer of the books — was to 
me always kind, considerate, and, at times, even tender. 
He was a capital seaman. I give this evidence in favour 
of a much-ridiculed race, who have been able seamen for 
centuries " 

" Did you ever read that Portuguese Guidebook ? " 
asked Lightbody of his neighbour ; " it's the most exquisitely 
ridiculous thing " 

"Will the great American pirate kindly go on, or resume 
his original functions," said Miss Jones, over the table. 



With the Entrdes. 48 1 

with a significant look in the direction of Lightbody. But 
her anxiety was instantly misinterpreted by the polite and 
fairplay-loving Englishman : " I say, now, don't you know 
that the fact is these Portuguese fellahs are always ahead 
of us in the discovery business ? Why, you know " 

" I shipped with him on a brig, ostensibly bound to St. 
Kitts and a market. We had scarcely left port before I 
discovered the true character of the vessel. I will not 
terrify you with useless details. Enough that all that tradi- 
tion and romance has given you of the pirate's life was 
ours. Happily, through the kindness of my Portuguese 
friend, I was kept from being an active participant in scenes 
of which 1 was an unwilling witness. But I must always 
bear my testimony to one fact. Our discipline, our esprit 
de corps, if I may so term it, was perfect. No benevolent 
society, no moral organisation, was ever so personally self- 
sacrificing, so honestly loyal to one virtuous purpose, as we 
were to our one vice. The individual was always merged 
in the purpose. When our captain blew out the brains of 
our quartermaster, one day" 

"That reminds me — did you read of that Georgia 
murder?" began Lightbody; "it was in all the papers I 
think. Oh, I beg pardon " 

" For simply interrupting him in a conversation with our 
second officer," continued our host quietly. " The act, 
although harsh and perhaps unnecessarily final, was, I 
think, indorsed by the crew. James, pass the champagne 
to Mr. Lightbody." 

He paused a moment for the usual casual interruption, 
but even the active Legrande was silent. 

Alas ! from the other end of the table came the voice of 
the Bonanza man — 

" The rope was around her neck. Well, gentlemen, that 
Mexican woman standing there, with that crowd around 

VOL. III. 2 H 



482 With the Entrdes, 

her, eager for her blood, dern my skin ! if she didn't call 
out to the sheriff to hold on a minit. And what fer ? Ye 
can't guess ! Why, one of them long braids she wore was 
under the noose, and kinder in the way. I remember her 
raising her hand to her neck and givin' a spiteful sort of 
jerk to the braid that fetched it outside the slipknot, and 
then saying to the sheriff; 'There, d — n ye, go on.' 
There was a sort o' thoughtfulness in the act, a kind o' 
keerless, easy way, that jist fetched the boys — even them 
thet hed the rope in their hands, and they " — (suddenly 
recognising the silence) : " Oh, beg pardon, old man ; 
didn't know I'd chipped into your yarn — heave ahead; 
don't mind me." 

"What I am trying to tell you is this : One night, in the 
Caribbean Sea, we ran into one of the Leeward Islands, 
that had been in olden time a rendezvous for our ship. 
We were piloted to our anchorage outside by my Portuguese 
friend, who knew the locality thoroughly, and on whose 
dexterity and skill we placed the greatest reliance. If 
anything more had been necessary to fix this circumstance 
in my mind, it would have been the fact that two or three 
days before he had assured me that I should presently have 
the means of honourable discharge from the pirate's crew, 
and a return to my native land. A launch was sent from 
the ship to communicate with our friends on the island, 
who supplied us with stores, provisions, and general infor- 
mation. The launch was manned by eight men, and 
officered by the first mate — a grim, Puritanical, practical 
New Englander, if I may use such a term to describe a 
pirate, of great courage, experience, and physical strength. 
My Portuguese friend, acting as pilot, prevailed upon them 
to allow me to accompany the party as coxswain. I 
was naturally anxious, you can readily comprehend, to 
see " 



With the Entries, 483 

"Certainly," "Of course," "Why shouldn't you?" went 
round the table. 

" Two trustworthy men were sent ashore with instructions. 
We, meanwhile, lay off the low, palm-fringed beach, our 
crew lying on their oars, or giving way just enough to keep 
the boat's head to the breakers. The mate and myself sat 
in the stern sheets, looking, shoreward for the signal. The 
night was intensely black. Perhaps for this reason never 
before had I seen the phosphorescence of a tropical sea so 
strongly marked. From the great open beyond, luminous 
crests and plumes of pale fire lifted themselves, ghost-like, 
at our bows, sank, swept by us with long, shimmering, 
undulating trails, broke on the beach in silvery crescents, or 
shattered their brightness on the black rocks of the pro- 
montory. The whole vast sea shone and twinkled like 
another firmament, against which the figures of our men, 
sitting with their faces toward us, were outlined darkly. 
The grim, set features of our first mate, sitting beside me, 
were faintly illuminated. There was no sound but the 
whisper of passing waves against our lapstreak, and the low, 
murmuring conversation of the men. I had my face toward 
the shore. As I looked over the glimmering expanse, I 
suddenly heard the whispered name of our first mate. As 
suddenly, by the phosphorescent light that surrounded it, I 
saw the long trailing hair and gleaming shoulders of a 
woman floating beside us. Legrande, you are positively 
drinking nothing ! Lightbody, you are shirking the Bur- 
gundy — you used to like it ! " 

He paused, but no one spoke. 

" I — let me see ! where was I ? Oh yes ! Well, I saw 
the woman, and when I turned to call the attention of the 
first mate to this fact, I knew instantly, by some strange 
instinct, that he had seen and heard her too. So, from 



484 With the Entrees, 

that moment to the conclusion of our little drama, we were 
silent but enforced spectators. 

" She swam gracefully — silently ! I remember noticing 
through that odd, half-weird, phosphorescent light which 
broke over her shoulders as she rose and fell with each 
quiet stroke of her splendidly rounded arms, that she was a 
mature, perfectly-formed woman. I remember, also, that 
when she reached the boat, and, supporting herself with 
one small hand on the gunwale, she softly called the mate 
in a whisper by his Christian name, I had a boyish idea 
that she was — the — er — er — female of his species — his — er 
natural wife ! I'm boring you — am I not ? " 

Two or three heads shook violently and negatively. The 
youngest, and, I regret to say, the oldest, Miss Jones uttered 
together sympathetically, " Go on — please ; do ! " 

"The — woman told him in a few rapid words that he 
had been betrayed ; that the two men sent ashore were now 
in the hands of the authorities ; that a force was being 
organised to capture the vessel ; that instant flight was 
necessary, and that the betrayer and traitor was — my friend, 
the Portuguese, Fernandez ! 

" The mate raised the dripping, little brown hand to his 
lips, and whispered some undistinguishable words in her 
ear. I remember seeing her turn a look of ineffable love 
and happiness upon his grim, set face, and then she was 
gone.. She dove as a duck dives, and I saw her shapely 
head, after a moment's suspense, reappear a cable's length 
away toward the shore. 

" I ventured to raise my eyes to the mate's face ; it was 
cold and impassive. I turned my face toward the crew ; 
they were conversing in whispers with each other, with 
their faces toward us, yet apparently utterly oblivious of the 
scene that had just taken place in the stern. There was a 



With the Entries. 485 

moment of silence, and then the mate's voice came out 
quite impassively, but distinctly ; — 

" ' Fernandez ! 

" * Ay, ay, sir ! 

" ' Come aft and — bring your oar with you.' 

"He did so, stumbling over the men, who, engaged in 
their, whispered yarns, didn't seem to notice him. 

" ' See if you can find soundings here.' 

" Fernandez leaned over the stern and dropped his oar 
to its shaft in the phosphorescent water. But he touched 
no bottom ; the current brought the oar at right angles 
presently to the surface. 

"'Send it down, man,' said the mate imperatively; 
* down, down. Reach over there. What are you afraid 
of? So ; steady there; I'll hold you.' 

" Fernandez leaned over the stern and sent the oar and 
half of his bared brown arm into the water. In an instant 
the mate caught him with one tremendous potential grip at 
his elbows, and forced him and his oar head downward in 
the waters. The act was so sudden, yet so carefully pre- 
meditated, that no outcry escaped the doomed man. Even 
the launch scarcely dipped her stern to the act. In that 
awful moment I heard a light laugh from one of the men 
in response to a wanton yarn from his comrade. James, 
bring the Vichy to Mr. Lightbody ! You'll find that a dash 
of cognac will improve it wonderfully. 

"Well — to go on — a few bubbles arose to the surface. 
Fernandez seemed unreasonably passive, until I saw that 
when the mate had gripped his elbows with his hands he 
had also firmly locked the traitor's knees within his own. 
In a few moments — it seemed to me, then, a century — the 
mate's grasp relaxed ; the body of Fernandez, a mere limp, 
leaden mass, slipped noiselessly and heavily into the sea. 
Tliere was no splash. The ocean took it calmly and quietly 



486 With the Entries. 

to its depths. The mate turned to the men, without deign- 
ing to cast a glance on me. 

" ' Oars ! ' 

" The men raised their oars apeak. 

" ' Let fall ! ' 

" There was a splash in the water, encircling the boat in 
concentric lines of molten silver. 

" ' Give way ! ' 

" Well, of course, that's all ! We got away in time. I 
knew I bored you awfully ! Eh ? Oh, you want to know 
what became of the woman — really, I don't know ! And 
myself — oh, I got away at Havana ! Eh ? Certainly ; 
James, you'll find some smelling salts in my bureau. 
Gentlemen, I fear we have kept the ladies too long," 

But they had already risen, and were slowly filing out of 
the room. Only one lingered — the youngest Miss Jones. 

" That was a capital story," she said, pausing beside our 
host, with a special significance in her usual audacity. '' Do 
you know you absolutely sent cold chills down my spine a 
moment ago? Really, "how, you ought to write for the 
magazines ! " 

Our host looked up at the pretty, audacious face. Then 
he said, sotto voce — 

" I do ! " 



END OF VOL. III. 



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